


a perfect cartoon man

by biblionerd07



Series: broad-shouldered beasts [13]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Attacks, Canon-Typical Behavior, Class Differences, Family Drama, Family Secrets, Gen, Growing Up, Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Parent-Child Relationship, Past Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 05:33:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18794008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biblionerd07/pseuds/biblionerd07
Summary: In his entire life, Yevgeny has never felt unwanted or unloved by his family. The more he learns about his parents' lives, the more incredible he realizes this is.





	a perfect cartoon man

**Author's Note:**

> I said that this would be the last part but I LIED and there's one more coming after this. I just can't help myself. (Also I wanted to show some more things that came full circle for Mickey and close it out with Mickey's POV rather than anyone else's.)

For the first five years of Yevgeny’s life, it was just him and his mama. His dad was in prison and Ian wasn’t around. Yevgeny knows this, but he doesn’t really remember it. He has hazy memories of a Christmas morning when he jumped on his mama’s bed, back when it was just the two of them, but that’s about it. As for his dad in prison—he remembers a long car ride when his mama tried to get him to play _I, Spy_ but he couldn’t really see anything out the windows because they didn’t know he needed glasses at that point. His memories of the actual prison are just the image of his dad in an orange jumpsuit with a phone against his ear. He doesn’t remember if anyone ever explained to him why his dad was in prison or what, exactly, that even meant; he doesn’t remember feeling any particular way about it.

Yevgeny does remember the day his dad came home. Sort of, anyway. He remembers that same long drive, and his mama let him put in an old CD of kids’ songs he’d had his whole life (later he would learn it had once belonged to Carl, and then Liam, and then him), and they waited in the parking lot until suddenly there was his dad, scowling and walking across the parking lot with rounded shoulders and his head ducked. It was the first time Yevgeny had ever seen him in normal clothes, and he remembers wondering if all grownup men held their pants up with one hand when they walked.

Yevgeny had been afraid of his dad for the first week and a half he was home. His dad never smiled and he barely talked. When he did talk, he always sounded mad or at least annoyed. Yevgeny never knew what he did wrong. He doesn’t remember individual instances; he just remembers being fascinated and terrified in equal measure.

But then one day, Yevgeny saw his dad sitting with his head in his hands on the couch. “Dad?” Yevgeny had asked tentatively. Mickey had jumped, wholly startled by the sound of Yevgeny’s voice, and when he looked up Yevgeny saw he looked scared, too. Yevgeny doesn’t remember if his dad said anything, or what else happened. He just remembers deciding if his dad was scared, too, Yevgeny didn’t need to be afraid. This was Yevgeny’s house all the time, after all, and his dad just got there. Yevgeny had gotten scared once when he had a sleepover at someone else’s house, so maybe it was just like that. After that, he just gave in to his fascination and checked religiously to make sure Mickey was still there every day, and soon any emotion but love for his dad faded from the picture.

He doesn’t remember the incident with Mickey grabbing his arm and shaking him. He’s known for as long as he _can_ remember that it happened—his dad used to bring it up a lot. Ian told him once Mickey brought it up all the time because it still made him feel guilty, and part of him probably hoped Yevgeny would be mad about it and make him feel bad, too. Yevgeny didn’t understand at that point why he would _want_ Yevgeny to make him feel bad, but Yevgeny didn’t understand a lot of stuff grownups did.

His dad’s actually been a grownup who’s always made a lot of sense to Yevgeny. When he’s scared or mad, he runs away. He worries about a lot of stuff and he has bad dreams. Those are all things that have always been perfectly relatable to Yevgeny. He doesn’t understand why certain things scare his dad or what his dad is always worrying about, but he knows if he _really_ wanted to know, his dad would try to explain it. Yevgeny doesn’t often ask, though. He can tell it’s hard for his dad to talk about it. Sometimes Yevgeny asks Ian or his mama instead, but there are some things they say only Mickey can tell him. Someday. When he’s older.

When Yevgeny’s about ten, a kid named Dallas comes over for a sleepover. “Dallas?” Mickey asks scornfully. “That’s not a fucking name.”

“Dad,” Yevgeny pleads. So Mickey doesn’t make fun of Dallas’s name when he comes over. Before they go to bed, Yevgeny opens his Magic Treehouse book to the chapter they left off on and climbs into his dad’s lap to read. Mickey has his arm around Yevgeny’s waist like he always does, ready to look down and help him with any words he doesn’t know. That doesn’t happen much anymore—Yevgeny knows a lot of words now. Sometimes when there’s a word he doesn’t know, Mickey doesn’t know it, either, and they have to look it up together. They finish reading, and Yevgeny and Dallas go off to his room to get ready for bed.

Monday at school, everyone’s calling Yevgeny a baby, because Dallas told everyone he still sits on his dad’s lap.

“I’m not a baby,” Yevgeny protests.

“Your dad was _holding_ you like a baby,” Dallas points out. “And your mom and your stepdad both _kissed you_ _goodnight_ on your forehead like a baby.”

Yevgeny yanks his hand away from Mickey when he comes to pick Yevgeny up from school. Yevgeny usually holds his dad’s hand while they walk home, but he can’t do that anymore. Not if he doesn’t want everyone to think he’s a baby.

“I’m too old to hold hands,” Yevgeny says. “I’m not a fucking baby, Dad.” He’s not supposed to say _fuck_ when they’re not at home, but at least they’re off the school property.

“Oh,” Mickey says. Yevgeny sees his Adam’s apple bob when he swallows. “Okay. Sorry.”

Mickey doesn’t say anything else about it while they walk home. Yevgeny sees him and Ian whispering in the kitchen, and Ian rubs Mickey’s back for a minute. After dinner, Mickey says, “You too old to read with your pops now, too?” He’s not looking at Yevgeny when he says it, and then he bites his lips a lot like he does when something bad’s happening. Ian looks at Yevgeny in this certain way that means Yevgeny did something wrong. But Ian’s not mad. It’s his _disappointed_ face.

Yevgeny’s stomach hurts. He thinks he hurt his dad’s feelings. But what’s he supposed to do? Everyone’s making fun of him. “We can read,” Yevgeny says meekly.

Mickey’s shoulders go down. That’s a good thing. Ian nods at Yevgeny a little. But when Mickey holds his arms open, Yevgeny shakes his head. “Not a baby,” he reminds Mickey.

Mickey takes a big breath. Yevgeny sees his chest get all big from it. “Alright.”

“Yev,” Ian starts to say.

“Nah, Ian, don’t,” Mickey interrupts. “He’s right. He’s not a baby. Shit, when I was ten I was picking out knuckle tats.”

Ian rolls his eyes. “You were not. You got those when you were fourteen.”

“Yeah, but I picked what I wanted when I was ten.”

Ian shakes his head. “Liar,” he says. “You picked them out of that rap song you listened to every day in sixth grade.”

Mickey laughs a little. “Fuck, I always forget you were creeping on me back then, too.”

Ian snorts. “It’s not creeping if you’re blasting it on the playground at lunch so everyone else has to listen to it, too.”

“Can I get knuckle tats?” Yevgeny breaks in. No one would make fun of him for being a baby if he had tattoos. Especially if he got _fuck_ on his fingers like Mickey has.

“Not anytime soon,” Ian says with a little laugh.

“Knuckle tats hurt like a bitch,” Mickey says. “You don’t have as much skin so the needle goes all the way through.”

“Needle?” Yevgeny asks. He hates needles. He cried last time he had to get shots. Maybe he _is_ a baby. But Mickey cries all the time and _he’s_ not a baby.

“Yeah, kid, that’s how you get tattoos,” Mickey says. “They jab you with a needle a bunch of times and then fill in the holes with ink.” He holds out his hands and looks at his knuckles. “Mine are fading now. You gotta re-do knuckles a lot ‘cause they fade way faster. And it’s real easy to fuck up and not get ‘em in the same place, so then you go through all that pain and it looks like shit.”

Yevgeny gulps. “Oh.”

“Why you want tats?” Mickey asks. He shakes his head a little, still looking at his. He has his teeth all clenched up.

“Everyone at school says I’m a baby,” Yevgeny mumbles. “’Cause I sat on your lap and Mama and Ian kissed me goodnight.”

“Oh, fucking Houston squealed, huh?” Mickey says.

“Dallas,” Yevgeny corrects.

“Sure.”

“Everybody says we’re too old for that kind of stuff,” Yevgeny says. But it makes him feel bad. He likes sitting on Mickey’s lap. He gets to feel the rumbles in Mickey’s chest when he laughs. It makes Yevgeny feel like nothing bad can happen. And he likes when Ian and Svetlana kiss him goodnight, too. That’s been how he goes to bed for as long as he can remember—sit on Mickey’s lap and read a book, then get his goodnight kisses and go to sleep. How’s he going to go to sleep if they change it?

“Fuck the kids at school,” Mickey says. “Do what you want.”

“What he means,” Ian says, giving Mickey a look, “is you have two choices, Yev. You can do whatever you want and not care what anyone else thinks. It’s kind of hard, because it’s hard not to care what people think. Especially your friends. Or you can decide you’re too old for goodnight kisses and holing hands and sitting on laps. And _either way_ , it’s your choice, and it’s okay. We’ll do whatever you want.”

Yevgeny bites his lip and pushes his glasses up. “I don’t think Mama will.”

Ian and Mickey both laugh a little at that. “Probably not,” Mickey agrees.

“No, we’ll talk to her,” Ian assures him. He shrugs. “Just keep in mind, this is hard for us. You’re our baby, Yev! I know, I know, you’re growing up. But we look at you and remember when you were this big.” He holds his hands close together. “I could hold you in one arm.”

Mickey huffs. “Now you’re just bragging about how strong you are. You were a chunky little baby, kid.”

“You were perfect,” Ian says, reaching across the couch and ruffling Yevgeny’s hair.

Yevgeny rolls his eyes. They tell him stuff like that all the time. It’s so boring. “I like when you kiss me goodnight,” he admits quietly. He feels kind of funny saying it. He looks down at his knees. “And I like sitting on Dad’s lap. I feel like…” He shrugs. “You keep me safe.”

“We’re always gonna keep you safe,” Mickey promises. “You don’t gotta sit on my lap for me to keep you safe, got it? Doesn’t matter where you are. You need me, I’m coming.”

“Can we…” Yevgeny hesitates. He peeks up at them. They’re sitting close together on the other end of the couch, holding hands, and they’re looking right at him, waiting for him to decide. “Can we just keep it a secret? Not when I’m having sleepovers?”

“Yeah, Yev, we can do that,” Ian says. He’s got a big smile on his face. He leans forward and Yevgeny meets him halfway for a hug. Ian kisses his forehead. “But definitely still no on the tats.”

“Yeah, I changed my mind,” Yevgeny admits. He looks at Mickey. “You must be way tougher than me.”

“Nah,” Mickey says. He gives Yevgeny a little shrug and then he smiles. “You’re the toughest guy I know, little man.”

Yevgeny’s pretty sure Mickey’s lying, and he’s just saying it because he’s Yevgeny’s dad, but it still makes him feel good to hear it.

Toward the end of seventh grade, Yevgeny’s teachers decide he can skip eighth grade and go straight to high school in the fall. He took a test earlier in the year to earn a scholarship at the private school for extra smart kids. His principal all but filled the application out for him. Yevgeny didn’t really expect to pass, but the principal’s freaking out because he didn’t just pass the test, he _aced_ it, and now the fancy private school is practically begging him to come. But Yevgeny’s parents have made it clear it’s up to him. Ian thinks it’s a great idea. He keeps talking about class sizes and funding and college prospects. Svetlana, on the other hand, doesn’t think Yevgeny should worry about college if he doesn’t want to. She doesn’t disagree with Ian about Yevgeny going to the new school, but she’s a little more hesitant about the timing. She isn’t sure Yevgeny should skip a grade. Mickey mostly just bites his lip and shrugs.

“Do you want to do it, kid?” Mickey asks. “You’ll be at a different school than all your friends.” At least he won’t have to worry about being younger than everyone—he’s always been the oldest in his class, because Svetlana waited an extra year to put him in kindergarten. Even then, he was still behind, but that was mostly just because he’s basically blind without his glasses. Once he got glasses and caught up, he started getting the best grades in all his classes.

“Luke’s moving to Alaska anyway,” Yevgeny reminds them. “So I don’t really care.”

Ian’s eyebrows pull together in concern. Yevgeny should have known better—hostility is less worrying to Ian than apathy. “But you’ve got other friends besides just Luke.”

“Yeah, but who cares?” Yevgeny says with a shrug. “Everyone’ll be different in high school, so I would’ve had to make new friends in a year anyway.”

Now all three of his parents are exchanging these worried little looks. “Something happen?” Mickey asks. He’s got that dangerous edge in his voice, the one that means he’s ready to go down to the school and pull his scary ex-con routine if he has to. All of Yevgeny’s friends are terrified of Mickey, which Yevgeny thinks is hilarious. His dad isn’t scary at _all_. He sounds kind of mean sometimes, if you don’t really know him, but it’s just how he talks, and sometimes he’s pretending to be mad to be funny.

Yevgeny sighs. “Liam said when he went to high school he had to make all new friends.”

“Why?” Svetlana looks mystified. She never went to high school. She doesn’t get it.

“His other friends didn’t want to be friends anymore,” Yevgeny says.

“Well…” Ian tips his head to the side. “I don’t know if you remember this, but Liam used to be kind of a little punk asshole.”

“Ah, right, okay,” Mickey cuts in, clueing into whatever Ian’s hinting at. “Kid, his friends didn’t tell him to get lost. Liam told _them_ to get lost. He went straight in high school and didn’t want those other little dickweeds dragging him down.” He raises his eyebrows at Yevgeny. “Made a good choice.”

Yevgeny can’t help but roll his eyes a little. His parents are really annoying about him having good friends who won’t get him in trouble. He knows Mickey’s really afraid he’s going to end up in jail, but Yevgeny thinks they’re way too paranoid. Sometimes Mickey makes Yevgeny come with him when he goes to talk to guys who are on parole so Yevgeny sees how bad life can be after prison. “I’m not going to make bad friends and go to jail.”

“You sure fucking won’t,” Mickey agrees. “Fucking kick your ass myself if I have to.”

Yevgeny snorts and rolls his eyes again, because there’s no way that would happen. Sometimes his dad is afraid to even hug him too hard. “Well, I wouldn’t mind not going to school with Brad anymore,” Yevgeny admits quietly.

Brad Chastain has tormented Yevgeny since the first grade. He didn’t like him in kindergarten, either, but it didn’t get bad until first grade. They had a little scrap on the playground and Yevgeny’s admittedly cheap shot to Brad’s nuts got him a reprieve for a while, but Brad got about fifty times worse when they got to middle school. There hasn’t been a day in two years Yevgeny hasn’t ended up getting tripped in the hallway or shoved into a bank of lockers or had spitballs shot at his head. Brad seems to have at least learned his lesson about talking shit about Yevgeny’s family where Yevgeny can hear him, but he spreads tons of rumors all the time. Two weeks ago someone asked Yevgeny if his mom castrated his dad like everyone was saying.

“That fucking guy,” Ian mutters, which is kind of funny because it’s basically the same thing he said the first time Yevgeny fought Brad.

“But I—” Yevgeny stops himself. He shouldn’t skip out on this. He knows Ian, for sure, would’ve loved going to a private, rich-kid school, but he never would’ve gotten the chance in a million years. Yevgeny should just be grateful.

“What?” Svetlana asks. “Is your choice, and all concerns matter.”

“I don’t know how to tie a tie,” Yevgeny says lamely. He saw the uniforms they have to wear. Everyone has to wear a tie, even the girls. Yevgeny’s never worn a tie in his life, not even at Mickey and Ian’s wedding.

Ian cracks up laughing. “Yev, I can teach you,” he says. “If that’s your only concern, consider it checked off.”

“He’s the one who taught me,” Mickey confirms. “But is it?” Mickey presses, searching Yevgeny’s face. “Is that really all you’re worried about?”

Yevgeny shrugs. “It’s kind of cool,” he says, starting to smile. His teachers think he’s smart enough to skip a whole grade. And not only that, he’d get to ride the L all by himself. Svetlana had a heart attack when he tried to do that at the beginning of the school year, but they’d have to let him to get to his new school. He’d be so cool. He’d probably even get his own Ventra card.

“It’s very cool!” Ian agrees proudly, wrapping an arm around Yevgeny’s shoulders and giving him a squeeze. “They only give out six scholarships per year.”

“You’re a real egghead, kid,” Mickey says, but he’s smiling, too, not making fun of Yevgeny. The kids at school like to tease him about being a nerd, but it’s never actually bothered him. He asked Mickey once if it should, and Mickey had made a face and said _fuck no, you think Einstein was embarrassed about being smarter than everyone else?_

“We will do _if_ is what you want,” Svetlana reminds him. “Your choice.”

“I want to,” Yevgeny says, feeling more confident now. “The counselor told me they have a guy whose _whole job_ is to help you get summer internships. I mean, if I don’t get a job.”

“Hey, you don’t need a job,” Mickey says. “Don’t worry about it.”

“But I can work soon,” Yevgeny points out. “I’ll be old enough next summer.”

“No, _we_ work,” Svetlana says. “You are child. Be child.”

Yevgeny doesn’t argue. He knows it’s basically pointless. His parents take pride in not needing him to work to survive. None of them had that growing up. They all had to contribute to the family finances, and he knows it’s a big deal to them that _their_ kid doesn’t have to worry about it. It’s kind of annoying sometimes, because Yevgeny wouldn’t mind buying a brand new pair of shoes or jeans instead of going through Liam’s hand-me-downs, but it’s okay. Yevgeny’s never cared much for fashion or anything like that.

So in August, after the big party for Mickey and Fiona’s birthdays, Ian drives Yevgeny over to the rich part of town to buy his uniform. The whole store is full of suit jackets with the school crest on them. Yevgeny didn’t even know schools could _have_ crests.

“Okay,” Ian says, looking at a rack of polo shirts. “Your list said you mostly wear the casual uniform, with the polo and the slacks. You only wear the formal uniform one day a week. So how many of these polos do you think we should get? Is two enough?”

“Well…I have to wear four of them,” Yevgeny points out, confused.

“Yev, your scholarship doesn’t cover the uniform,” Ian says in an undertone. He doesn’t sound embarrassed, necessarily, but he does glance over his shoulder.

“Oh.” Yevgeny can feel his face heating up a little. He manages to snag a look at the price tag on one of the polos and swallows hard. “Two’s fine. I can wash ‘em if I get dirty.”

Ian lets go of the shirt he was holding up and pulls Yevgeny against his chest. “You’re a really good kid, you know that?” He murmurs against the crown of Yevgeny’s head. Yevgeny knows a lot of his friends hate when their parents hug them and say mushy stuff, but he doesn’t. He loves getting hugs from his parents.

“Yeah, I know,” Yevgeny says, just to make Ian laugh. It works. Ian kisses the top of Yevgeny’s head, and that’s pushing it a little. He’s not a baby anymore. Hugs are okay, but kisses are getting to be a little too much for public. He doesn’t say anything, though. Right now, he can tell Ian feels kind of bad about the uniform thing.

When they get to the cash register, it becomes abundantly clear why Ian brought him instead of Mickey. Mickey would’ve taken one look at the price and started swearing at the old man behind the counter. He would’ve asked how much they were paying the little kids in the sweatshops who made the clothes since they’re charging so much. He would’ve made a big scene, and Yevgeny probably wouldn’t have gotten his uniform, and he also would’ve died of embarrassment.

Ian, to his credit, only makes a little noise in the back of his throat as he hands over his credit card. He keeps his cool a lot better than Mickey, especially in public. Mickey’s a lot better than he used to be, but this would’ve sent him over the edge. Yevgeny gets that sick, shaky feeling in his stomach as he watches the man fold up his uniform and put it in the bag. This is too expensive.

Yevgeny knows they’re not poor like his parents were all poor. Mickey pretty much never had hot water or food, and Ian was a little better off but not much. Svetlana hasn’t mentioned being poor all that much, but she has this way of eating that looks like she doesn’t know when she’ll get food next. There were a few years when money was pretty tight, when Svetlana went part-time at work and was going to school to get a certificate in bookkeeping, and then Ian took a turn not working to go to paramedic school. From third to sixth grade, it was a lot of leftovers for lunch and no new clothes. Now Ian and Svetlana get paid more than they were making before, and Mickey’s been at his job since Yevgeny was a little kid, so he makes a decent amount.

But now they’re making sure Liam has money on top of his scholarship at college, and Carl’s in grad school so they help him too, and sometimes they help Fiona pay for stuff at her house, and when Mandy was in college they gave her money sometimes, and Mickey’s brothers need bail money sometimes. They’re not starving, but they’re certainly never going to be rich, and money isn’t something they can just throw around with no second thoughts.

“Maybe I shouldn’t go,” Yevgeny says quietly in the car on the way home.

Ian looks over at him and doesn’t say anything for a minute. He taps his fingers on the steering wheel totally off-beat with the music on the radio. Ian is not musical by any stretch of the imagination, much to his own chagrin, and Mickey always laughs about it because he says Ian used to get paid to dance.

“Is it just about the money?” Ian finally asks.

Yevgeny shrugs. “That was a lot of money.”

“It was,” Ian admits. He never lies to Yevgeny. Well, he’s probably told some little white lies, like the time Yevgeny was nine and asked why Ian and Mickey needed a lock on their bedroom door. But he doesn’t lie about big stuff, even when it means he has to tell Yevgeny they can’t talk about it until he’s older.

“See? I _should_ get a job.”

“Yev,” Ian sighs. “I don’t think you getting a job is a bad thing, actually. Not every day, and not during school. Just a few hours a week in the summer wouldn’t be too bad. But you understand why we don’t really want you to, right?”

“Because you all grew up working all the time and you don’t want me to.”

“Yeah,” Ian says. “I’ve worked odd jobs for money since I was ten, and I’ve had a real job since I was fourteen. I never really got to be a _kid_. I lied and said I was older and the guy running the store didn’t actually check. He was—” Ian stops himself, but then he cocks his head and raises his eyebrows. “Well, you’re probably old enough to hear this.” He takes a deep breath. “I wasn’t quite fifteen yet, and he was in his thirties. Married with kids. And he, um.” He deliberates for a second. Yevgeny knows this face. It means he’s trying to water-down what he means so it’s a little more kid-friendly. “Well, he had sex with me.”

“ _What_?” Yevgeny gasps. “An old guy? Nasty! Isn’t that illegal?”

“It is,” Ian says. “And it’s also…bad.” He makes a face. “That was kinda lame, but you know what I mean, right?”

Yevgeny thinks for a second. “So you’re afraid if I get a job an old guy’s gonna have sex with me?”

Ian huffs, lips ticking up a little. “Well, not necessarily. Not that, exactly. It’s just…right now we have a lot of control over your life. Who you interact with, stuff like that. We know your teachers and we make sure to know if you’re meeting with them after school or at lunch or anything like that, so we can keep up with who you’re alone with. But the older you get, the less control we have over that.”

“And it’s scary?” Yevgeny guesses.

“God, it is _terrifying_ ,” Ian admits with a little laugh. “You know a lot of bad shit happened to all of us. We don’t want anything to happen to you. You’re really—” He stops for a second. “Don’t take this wrong, okay? But you’re really innocent. When I was your age, I’d already gotten taken away from my family three times and sent to different foster homes. And Mama and Dad…” Ian shakes his head. “You know about their dads.”

“Yeah.” Yevgeny knows all three of his parents grew up in really bad homes. They all got _hit_ by their dads. Yevgeny can’t even imagine that. He knows Mickey shook him once, but he doesn’t really remember it, and he still can’t wrap his head around it. Mickey would never do that again, and Ian certainly wouldn’t, either. And being taken away to go sleep at someone else’s house for a while? Yevgeny wouldn’t be able to do it. He’s never even stayed the whole night at a sleepover without getting a stomachache so bad he has to call home in the middle of the night for one of his parents to come pick him up.

“We just want to protect you for as long as we can. Make sure none of the bad shit we went through happens to you.”

Yevgeny digests that. Ian doesn’t push him to say anything right away. He never does. Yevgeny loves that. Mickey does it too, so Yevgeny thinks maybe it’s because they go to therapy, though Mickey always looks over at him a bunch of times to make sure he’s still thinking. Svetlana’s a little more impatient, but as long as he makes a noise like he’s thinking she doesn’t get mad or anything.

“Did you want to have sex with the old guy?” Yevgeny asks carefully. He looks hard at Ian’s face to see if Ian’s upset by the question.

“It’s okay,” Ian assures him. “I figured you’d have questions.” He sighs again. “Yeah, I did. I liked the attention, and he bought me presents. But the thing is, Yev, you don’t always know what’s best when you’re a teenager. And it’s an adult’s job to know better. He shouldn’t have done that. And just because I wanted to do it and I felt like I had the power doesn’t mean I did, and it doesn’t mean it didn’t fuck me up big time. That guy and the other older guys, too.”

Yevgeny can feel his eyes going really wide. “It was more than one?”

Ian winces, and Yevgeny feels bad. But before he can tell Ian it’s okay, he doesn’t have to answer, Ian says steadily, “Yeah, Yev. There were…at least four older guys. I actually don’t—I’m not totally sure. My mom, um.” Ian licks his lips. He doesn’t talk about his mom a lot. Yevgeny knows she’s dead and she was bipolar, too, and that she’s a sore subject for Ian. That’s pretty much all he knows. “When I had my first manic episode, before I knew what it was, I ran away. I was almost seventeen. A lot of stuff happened before that, but it’s not all my story to tell, so I’m not going to tell it. But eventually I ended up with my mom. We were doing a lot of drugs, and I got a job stripping, so a lot of the older guys who came in and saw me danced would ask to take me home and they’d give me drugs if I did. And sometimes when we wanted drugs but couldn’t pay for them, my mom…asked me to sleep with guys who would get some for us. Sometimes I wasn’t even…well, I don’t remember all of it.” Ian’s working hard to give him a really sanitized version of events, but Yevgeny knows what he’s not saying. Ian’s mom pimped him out for drugs when he wasn’t pimping _himself_ out for drugs. And sometimes he didn’t even know what was happening.

Yevgeny feels like he’s going to start crying. “Your mom did that?” His voice comes out shaky. That makes two of his parents who were some kind of prostitute, indirectly or not, against their will. Yevgeny’s pretty sure they all think he doesn’t know about Svetlana, but he does. She’s never actually told him, and he hasn’t asked about any of that, but he’s heard enough to piece it together.

“Yeah, she did,” Ian says. He looks over at Yevgeny and gives him a smile so sad Yevgeny actually does start to cry a little. Moms aren’t supposed to do that. Moms are supposed to protect their kids. Svetlana has always, always made sure that Yevgeny is safe and taken care of. And he’s really sad that Ian’s mom didn’t. “Oh, Yev,” Ian says, reaching over to touch his hair. “It’s okay, buddy. I’m okay now.”

“But that’s really bad,” Yevgeny insists, taking off his glasses so they don’t fog up from him crying.

“Yeah, it really is,” Ian says. “And it really fucked me up for a long time. But you want to know how I got away from the older guys?”

“How?”

Ian smiles a little. “Dad waited around after work one night and took me home. I passed out and he carried me. And then I was still stripping, but Dad came with me, and believe me, none of those guys even _asked_ to take me home with Dad glaring at them.” He laughs a little, but then something dark passes over his face for a second. He doesn’t elaborate, and Yevgeny doesn’t ask.

“Was the bad stuff that happened before you ran away stuff with Dad?” Yevgeny asks quietly. He knows they dated when they were teenagers, and he knows a lot of it was pretty fucked up, to directly quote Mickey.

Ian takes a deep breath. “Yeah.”

“Can I can ask him about it?” What he means is _should_ he ask. He knows if he asks, Mickey will do his best to tell him, but it might be really hard for him to talk about and he might get really upset. He might cry in the scary way, where he puts his hands over his face and stops breathing for a second because he’s trying not to. He only does that when something’s really, really bad. Yevgeny’s only seen it a handful of times in his life, and it’s made him cry, too, every single time. Yevgeny’s not going to even try to open that door unless Ian gives him the okay.

Ian bites his lip and runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t know, Yev,” he says quietly. “It was…” He shakes his head, throat working. His knuckles are white where he’s clenching his fingers against the steering wheel. “It might be the worst thing that ever happened to Dad.”

That seems like a really tall order. From what Yevgeny knows about Mickey’s life as a kid, it was all horrible. They were even poorer than Ian’s family, and Mickey used to only get to eat what he could steal. A lot of times they didn’t have water, so he couldn’t take a shower or wash any of his clothes and other kids made fun of him for smelling bad. He has these little circular scars in a bunch of random places, like his back and his calves and under one armpit, that he really casually said were from his mom and his dad and his uncles putting out cigarettes on him. His left elbow sticks out at a weird angle because his dad used to yank it out of the socket all the time. He has a thick, jagged scar that goes all the way across his stomach because his dad pushed him into a barbed wire fence. He’s mentioned that his dad used to smack him almost every day and his uncles and brothers did, too. He wasn’t ever allowed to cry and his dad _hated_ that he was gay. Something happened with his dad and Mandy that was really bad but no one will directly talk about. And then Mickey went to prison and he used to get jumped at least once a week. He has that big scar on his face from a guy trying to _kill_ him. He has two brothers that were so bad to him Yevgeny’s never even met them, and Yevgeny’s only allowed to see Iggy and Colin when someone else from the family is there, too, and he’s never allowed to go to either of their houses because they’re drug dealers.

And that’s just the stuff Yevgeny knows about. Yevgeny’s not stupid enough to think that’s everything.

“Okay,” Yevgeny says. “I won’t ask.”

“We’re gonna talk about most of it,” Ian promises. “Someday.”

“Not all of it?” Yevgeny asks.

Ian runs a hand over his face. “I don’t know,” he says really carefully. “Yev, there’s some stuff that…” He sighs. “It’s really complicated, okay?”

“Okay,” Yevgeny mumbles, feeling really off-kilter about this whole conversation.

“Hey,” Ian says. He reaches over and grabs Yevgeny’s knee, giving him a silly little shake. “What’s important is we’re all here now, and we love you, and we’re doing good, right?”

“We’re doing _well_ ,” Yevgeny corrects, just to be a bit of a snot.

Ian snorts. “Okay, you fancy private school nerd.”

“Hey!” Yevgeny laughs.

Ian’s laughing, too. “We’re really proud of you, Yev. So let’s be excited, okay? This is a big deal! When we get home you’re gonna have to put on your uniform and show us how fancy you’ll look.”

They laugh about it, but Yevgeny can’t help but still feel a little uneasy. The older he gets, the more he understands that all three of his parents had supremely shitty lives, and he’s never quite sure how to deal with that information.

 

“Yev, let’s join the Spanish club.” Blake knocks on the outside of Yevgeny’s locker while Yevgeny searches for his chemistry book.

“I don’t speak Spanish,” Yevgeny says distractedly.

“We’ll _learn_ ,” Blake insists.

“I already speak Russian,” Yevgeny reminds him. “I think I’m good on languages.”

“Don’t more people speak Spanish than Russian?” Blake asks triumphantly.

“Not at my house.”

Blake slumps. “But _Chloe_ ’s in the Spanish club.”

“Oh, God,” Yevgeny mutters, shoving his glasses up his nose. He gives up on his chemistry book—he must have left it at the garage yesterday. Mickey picked him up from school but had to run back to close everything up. Russell made him manager four years ago, and Mickey takes it very seriously.

“She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen!” Blake insists.

“Sure, but joining the Spanish club isn’t going to make a _senior_ with a _boyfriend_ notice you.” Yevgeny raises his eyebrows. “Sorry, man.”

Blake is in Yevgeny’s homeroom and English classes, and they both plan to go out for the swim team in the winter, so they became easy friends. It’s been just over a month into the new school year, and this is the third girl Blake’s claimed to have fallen in love with.

Just then, Abigail Clawson, a girl who has what Liam always calls a “lady-boner” for Yevgeny, walks up to his locker. She’s a freshman, too, but she’s been at this school since kindergarten so she’d been assigned to give him a campus tour during orientation. Yevgeny’s one of only three new kids to the high school this year. He’s been extremely popular this first month while everyone clamors to meet the fresh blood. They’ve mostly all gone to school together since kindergarten and are sick of each other.

“Hi, Yev,” she says, leaning against the locker next to his.

“Hi, Abigail,” Blake says pointedly, but she ignores him like she always does.

“Did you get your chem homework done last night?” Abigail asks Yevgeny.

“Yeah, but I must’ve forgotten my book,” Yevgeny says. “I can’t find it.”

“We can share today,” Abigail offers.

Yevgeny doesn’t sigh, but he kind of wants to. He wants to skip to the part of the year where people who are only interested because he’s new go away and he’s left with the people who actually want to be his friend. Keeping up with all thirty kids in his class trying to talk to him is getting exhausting. He knows it makes him sound like kind of a dick to complain about it, though.

“Okay, thanks,” he says. Abigail inches closer, throwing her long hair over her shoulder. Mickey had told him that’s a trick girls do to draw attention to their hair, which made Ian crack up laughing and ask, _You know this how?_ When Yevgeny asked Svetlana, she’d shrugged and said she’s never had to worry about using tricks.

The bell rings and they all head off to class. Behind Abigail’s back, Blake makes a gesture Yevgeny recognizes instantly from Carl and Liam, though he isn’t entirely positive what it actually means. He sends back a gesture he learned from Mickey.

“Did you just flip Blake off?” Abigail asks. “Or someone else?”

“Blake,” Yevgeny says. “He—uh…”

“He’s weird, right?” Abigail asks.

“No,” Yevgeny says, not sure if he should be offended or not. He and Blake aren’t _that_ good of friends yet. “He’s cool.”

“Well, last year he ended up on academic probation,” Abigail says. “Just be sure if you’re friends with him you’re not letting him be a bad influence.”

Yevgeny feels like he just got scolded. “Uh, okay,” he says, and then, because he can’t help it, he adds sarcastically, “Thanks, Mom.”

Abigail purses her lips. “Sorry for caring.” She stalks off and leaves Yevgeny thoroughly confused. He barely knows this girl and she’s acting like he should be taking her advice as gospel.

“What?” He asks the empty hallway. Then he rushes to class, because they are severe with tardiness here.

When he recounts this story over dinner, Mickey shakes his head. “Run away from that one, kid,” he says sagely. “Sounds like one of those weirdos who’s gonna put a tracker on your phone.”

“You guys put a tracker on my phone,” Yevgeny points out.

Mickey rolls his eyes. “That came with your phone, and we’re just making sure you don’t get kidnapped and sold to some old dude who wants to drink your fucking blood to stay young.”

“Lip had a girlfriend who planned out his life like that in college,” Ian says. “Amanda. You met her once or twice, Mick.”

“Are you expecting me to remember?” Mickey asks.

“No, that’s why I told you,” Ian says with a laugh. “She was rich, too.”

“Maybe is rich girls,” Svetlana suggests.

“You want to scare her off, just bring her around here and we’ll do our thing,” Mickey suggests.

“Why would coming here scare her off?” Yevgeny asks.

“Rich, fancy, private school girl?” Mickey asks skeptically. “I bet you could just show her a picture of me and she’d run.”

“Unless she hates her parents,” Ian points out.

“Oh, yeah, watch out for those ones.”

“Again, I’m wondering how you think you know this,” Ian laughs. “Were you dating a lot of girls I never knew about? Angie Zhago doesn’t count.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Mickey grumbles. “You always hated Angie.” They’re both laughing now. Yevgeny looks across the table at Svetlana. She shrugs and rolls her eyes.

“Do you like rich girl?” Svetlana asks.

“I don’t _like_ like her,” Yevgeny says. “I don’t think so, anyway.”

“You’d know,” Ian says confidently. “At your age? No question.”

“Eh,” Mickey says.

“What eh?” Svetlana asks.

“Eh,” Mickey repeats. “Maybe he wouldn’t know right away. I didn’t.”

“Little different, Mick,” Ian reminds him gently.

“Well, Blake likes a new girl every week,” Yevgeny says. “And he’s always saying how they’re the prettiest girls he’s ever seen and he can’t stop thinking about them.” He shrugs. “That doesn’t happen to me.”

“Could be a late bloomer,” Ian muses. “You _are_ the youngest in your class now.”

Yevgeny scowls. Being the oldest in his class his whole life never mattered; he’d hardly noticed. It gave him a _little_ help in not being the smallest one in class. But since he skipped a grade, he’s the youngest now, and kids at school keep reminding him. Everyone else seems to be hitting growth spurts left and right and it makes Yevgeny look like a baby.

“I’m not a late bloomer,” Yevgeny protests. “I just don’t know if I like her or not.”

“Well, don’t worry about it,” Ian says. “You don’t have to like her just because she likes you. And you don’t have to date her, either.”

“Careful, though,” Mickey warns. “She might send her brother over to beat your ass.”

“And if you’re real lucky you’ll get to marry him,” Ian says, grinning over at Mickey.

“We _know_ how you met,” Yevgeny says wearily as they kiss. “Did you know none of my friends’ parents are gross like you?”

“Probably ‘cause your friends’ parents are old,” Mickey says. “We’re still young and horny.”

“Ew, Dad!” Yevgeny complains.

“Speaking of horny, don’t you have a date tomorrow?” Ian asks Svetlana.

Yevgeny presses his hands over his ears. “You guys are so nasty! I don’t want to hear this shit!”

“Ah, come on, you’re in high school now,” Mickey says. “You know about sex, right?”

“ _You_ told me about sex,” Yevgeny reminds him. He’d come home from school one day when he was about nine and asked where babies came from. Neither of them ever fully recovered from that conversation, even with the damage control Ian tried to do later.

Mickey shrugs. “Hey, you asked.” He turns to Svetlana. “Who’s your date with?”

Svetlana pushes her food around for a second. “Is not date,” she says. “Maybe.”

“Fuck’s that mean?” Mickey asks when she doesn’t elaborate.

She sighs. “Is Nika.”

No one says anything for a second. “Nika?” Ian asks, squinting. “One of the other…” His eyes flit over to Yevgeny. “Russian girls.”

“Yes,” Svetlana says.

Mickey crosses his arms over his chest. “She disappeared and now she’s back a million years later? And what, she wants to fucking get coffee and catch up?”

Svetlana shrugs. “Is what she said.”

“Who’s Nika?” Yevgeny asks.

All three adults just look at him for a minute. Then they have a conversation only with eyebrows and shrugs and facial expressions. Svetlana clears her throat. “Zhenya,” she says delicately. “Before you—before and after, sometime. When you were baby. I was…” She bites her lip.

“It’s not something you gotta feel bad about,” Mickey snaps. Ian puts his hand on Mickey’s arm, comfort and constraint in one gesture.

“I was whore,” Svetlana says, keeping her chin raised defiantly, and now Ian puts a hand on her arm, too, but just for comfort. “Was how I came to America.”

Yevgeny swallows hard. “Mama…I already knew that,” he says, kind of apologetically. “I mean I thought so. But—” He glances quickly at Mickey and Ian, and then back at her. “You didn’t want to. Right? Someone else made you do it.”

She looks down at the table. “Yes,” she says softly. “My father. He sold me.”

Yevgeny blinks. He feels sick. “He sold you?” His voice is small. He always thought his parents were exaggerating when they said they were worried about him being sold to someone. He didn’t think that happened to people anymore.

“He was a bad fucking guy,” Mickey says, bouncing his leg.

“For drugs like Ian’s mom?” Yevgeny asks.

“For money,” Svetlana says.

Yevgeny has tears pricking at his eyes. He looks at his mama. “Why would he do that?”

“’Cause he was a bad fucking guy,” Mickey repeats, teeth clenched. “He’s lucky he died before I ever got my hands on him.”

Svetlana nods. “He was bad man,” she says. “Mama died when I was baby. He was drinking. Did not want me anyway, so he got money.”

Mickey gets up and starts pacing, biting his thumbnail. “You knew we all had shitty parents, kid,” he reminds Yevgeny. “That’s why we don’t know what the fuck we’re doing.”

Yevgeny wipes at his eyes. “I’m sorry, Mama,” he tells her in Russian. “I love you.”

Now Svetlana’s crying a little, too. She holds out her arm and Yevgeny gets out of his chair to hug her. She strokes his hair while he breathes in the smell of her shampoo and her deodorant and her perfume. She’s smelled exactly the same his entire life. It’s the most comforting smell in the world.

“Nika was girl with me,” Svetlana says. “Came from Russia together.”

“Came together more than that,” Mickey mutters.

Svetlana laughs. “Yes,” she admits, patting Yevgeny’s back. “Dated Nika. I like choice.”

Yevgeny pulls back. “So you’re going on a date with your ex? I watch a lot of TV, Mama. That never ends well.”

Svetlana snorts. “Maybe is not date,” she says. “Not sure.”

“Do you want it to be a date?” Yevgeny asks.

She sighs. “Not sure,” she repeats. She gives him a sad little smile. “Nika had same thing happen to her I did. Is nice just to talk.”

“Oh,” Yevgeny says. “Shared experience.”

“Oh, great,” Mickey says. “That high school psych class is kicking in already.”

“You knew this would happen,” Ian reminds him. “Wait until he has to do a final project.”

“Are you okay, Mama?” Yevgeny asks. “You don’t go to therapy like they do. Isn’t that what it’s for? To help you if you’ve been through bad shit?”

“I did go,” she says. “You were small.”

“Really?” Yevgeny asks.

“For a month,” Mickey rats her out. “She tried one shitty therapist and wouldn’t go find another.”

“People heal on their own timeline,” Ian says warningly. “You know that better than anyone.”

Yevgeny sits back down in his chair heavily. “Our family is really fucked up,” he realizes.

Mickey cracks up laughing. “I mean, if it took you this long to notice, maybe we’re better than we thought.”

“Dad, I’m not joking!” Yevgeny insists, voice shaking. “All of you had really fucked up lives. What happens in childhood changes the whole rest of your life.”

“Oh, trust me, we know,” Mickey says.

“You’re just laughing at it,” Yevgeny points out. He swipes at his nose with the back of his hand.

“Yev, you’re not wrong,” Ian says. “But you have to remember, this is tougher for you right now than for us. You’re just finding this out. We all already knew.”

“Is there other really fucked up stuff you haven’t told me?” Yevgeny asks.

The three of them exchange an anxious look. “Yeah,” Mickey finally says. “But we’re still not telling you.”

“Why?” Yevgeny asks, surprised. Usually if he can work up to asking, Mickey’s pretty straight forward. Mickey sighs, but now Yevgeny can see his hands starting to shake. He remembers how he used to hold Mickey’s hands to get them to stop shaking. They don’t shake as often these days as they did when Yevgeny was younger.

“It’s bad, Yev,” Ian says simply. “It’s really bad.”

Yevgeny meets his eye. He remembers what Ian said in the car—the worst thing that’s ever happened to Mickey. Yevgeny swallows hard. “Okay,” he relents.

“Yeah?” Mickey asks.

“I trust you,” Yevgeny says. “You guys never lie to me, so…” He shrugs.

Mickey comes over and kisses the top of Yevgeny’s head. It’s not as annoying at home as in public. “You’re a good kid,” he murmurs. “We really lucked out with you.”

Yevgeny’s not quite sure how to tell them this, but when he hears his friends talk about their parents and their families, he thinks _he’s_ pretty lucky.

 

Abigail is not letting up. It’s not like she’s pushy, exactly; she’s just always _there_. She shows up at Yevgeny’s locker, she sits by him at lunch, and she always wants to share her chem book in class. Yevgeny’s been extremely careful not to forget his again.

“I think Abigail’s your girlfriend,” Blake points out one day in homeroom after Abigail texts Yevgeny for the fourth time in fifteen minutes.

“I didn’t agree to that!” Yevgeny says. “Isn’t that a two-person decision?”

Blake shrugs. “Maybe not to her. I’ve known her since kindergarten. If she wants something, she goes and gets it.”

Yevgeny covers his face, distressed. “That shouldn’t extend to people!”

Blake laughs at him. “Hey, man, she’s cute, though. There are definitely worse girls to chase after you.”

“But it seems kinda mean,” Yevgeny points out. “If I don’t like her, I shouldn’t make her think I do.”

“You haven’t,” Blake says. “You barely talk around her.”

“I don’t have anything to say,” Yevgeny defends himself. “Doesn’t she think that means I don’t like her?”

“No,” Blake admits. “She thinks you’re just shy ‘cause you’re young.”

Yevgeny groans and rests his head on the desk. “I’m not a little kid. I’m not even the youngest by a _lot_. Isn’t Madilyn’s birthday in July? She’s younger than I am!”

“She’s a girl,” Blake says with a shrug. Blake leans in closer. “Hey, you could just use Abigail for practice, you know.”

“Practice for what?” Yevgeny asks.

Blake laughs out loud. “ _Dude_! Sex.”

Yevgeny recoils a little. “I’m not going to have sex with her if I don’t even like her!” He hisses, scandalized. “That’ll _definitely_ make her think I want to be her boyfriend.”

“Well, she can just be your practice girlfriend. I mean, you’ve never had a girlfriend, right?”

Yevgeny shrugs, feeling self-conscious. “No. Have you?”

“Yeah,” Blake says. “Like four.”

Yevgeny’s mouth drops open. “Four?” He echoes. “And you kissed all of them?”

Blake gives Yevgeny this condescending, pitying look. “I had sex with two of them.”

“You’re—you’re only fifteen!” Yevgeny sputters. “When did you do that?”

“Just last year,” Blake admits. “But still. You’re way behind, dude. I’m pretty sure you’re the only guy in our class who hasn’t at least felt a boob.”

Yevgeny can’t believe this. Maybe Ian was right—maybe he _is_ a late bloomer. Sure, he thought about kissing Rosa Hernandez a bunch of times last year, but he never _did_ it. It never occurred to him he even could. Or should, for that matter.

“Well…” Yevgeny scoffs. “Joaquin’s gay, so I bet he hasn’t touched a boob.”

“He has,” Blake says. “When he wasn’t sure if he was gay, Adelaide let him touch hers to check.”

“That doesn’t seem like an exact science,” Yevgeny mutters, mind working overtime. “My dad’s gay and here I am.”

Blake does a double-take. “Your dad’s gay?”

Yevgeny blinks. “Yeah. You didn’t know that? He’s been married to my stepdad for seven years.”

“Your stepdad is married to your _dad_?” Blake asks. “I had no idea.”

“You just assumed he was married to my mom,” Yevgeny realizes. “Well, that’s heteronormative of you.” That’s something Debbie lectures everyone about. Every time she starts going into one of those presentations, Mickey throws something soft at her and says, _Hey, if I need lessons on being gay, I’ll go suck my husband’s dick_.

“Not like you ever said anything,” Blake points. “What the hell is heteronormative?”

“It means you think everyone’s hetero.” Yevgeny shakes his head. “Better brush up on your Greek and Latin roots.”

“Is hetero a Greek or Latin root?” Blake asks.

“I don’t know. But I’ll give you five bucks if you ask Mr. Peterson today.”

“Deal.”

Yevgeny can’t get the whole thing out of his mind all day. He rides the L to Mickey’s garage, since the garage is the only place that wouldn’t mind a kid hanging around. Ian certainly can’t take Yevgeny to work with him, and Svetlana’s boss thinks kids should stay in a nursery and then at boarding school. Svetlana hates him, but he lets her take time off whenever she wants, so she never says anything about him being an ass. He hasn’t tried to grab _her_ ass, at least. If he did, he’d be dead. If Svetlana didn’t kill him herself—which Yevgeny’s pretty sure she would—Ian and Mickey would definitely do it.

Yevgeny sits on the ground next to the car Mickey’s under, handing Mickey tools when he asks for them. Mickey doesn’t really need Yevgeny’s help, but he always says he likes to have it if he can get it. He’s taught Yevgeny tons of stuff about cars and sometimes, if no one else is around, he lets Yevgeny work on the cars by himself. He said someday Yevgeny can “impress chicks” with his skills. Yevgeny’s not sure he knows any girls who’d be impressed by him fixing a car, but he figures Mickey just doesn’t really know what girls like.

“Hey, Mickey,” Russell calls. “You under there?”

“Yeah,” Mickey says. “I need to come out?”

“Just for a second. I’m heading out, want to talk to you about something before I go.” Russell comes around the side. If he waited another second, Mickey would’ve gone to him. Mickey always tries to go to him so he doesn’t have to walk as much. He limps a lot. He’s pretty old and apparently he was in a war or something. “Oh, hey, Yev,” he says. “How’s the new school?”

“It’s okay,” Yevgeny says.

“Just okay?”

“He’s got a clinger,” Mickey says. “Chicks can’t resist the baby blues.”

Yevgeny snorts. “I think this is when Ian would laugh at you again.”

Mickey huffs, grinning. “You know, if you weren’t my kid, I would tell you to fuck off for that.”

It makes Yevgeny laugh. “I know,” he says smugly.

Mickey snorts and nudges him with his elbow before turning to Russell. “What’s up?”

“You’ve been manager for four years now,” Russell says. “And you’re doing a great job.”

“Okay,” Mickey says, starting to blush a little. “Thanks.” He says the second part so quiet it’s almost inaudible, looking down at the rag he’s wiping his hands on. He’s not very good at taking compliments. He says he has to work on it with his therapist, but Ian says he might just never be good at it. Ian always gets kind of sad when they talk about it, and Yevgeny’s starting to realize it’s because he’s sad that Mickey’s life sucked. That seems kind of weird to Yevgeny when _Ian’s_ life sucked, too, but Mickey gets sad about Ian’s sucky life and they both get sad for Svetlana’s sucky life, so maybe they all just feel bad for each other.

“You know my back’s been acting up,” Russell says. “Doc says I’ll need surgery. Be out for a long time.”

“Shit,” Mickey says. “Sorry, man. Everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’s alright,” Russell says, waving a hand. “Just old and broken down. But I’m thinking, you know. I’ll be out for a long time, and I can barely do any work on the cars these days. Might be time for me to retire. I mean, I’m seventy fucking years old.”

Mickey swallows hard. “Oh,” he says, stunned. “Well…” He scratches his lip. “You gonna close up or what?”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking about,” Russell says. “Now, my surgery isn’t for about six months, so we can use most of that time for the transition period.”

“Transition period for what?” Mickey asks nervously.

Russell looks at him for a second. “I want to hand this place over to you, Mickey. I want you to take over.”

Mickey leans back against the tire of the car. He looks like someone just pushed him over. “Me?” He asks. His voice comes out all small.

“Yeah. You do good work, kid, and you got a good head on your shoulders.” Russell looks at Yevgeny. “Your dad’s real smart, did you know that?”

“Yeah,” Yevgeny says. Ian says it all the time, and Mickey’s always been the first one Yevgeny goes to for help on his math homework.

“Russell, I don’t know fuck all about owning anything.” Mickey’s voice is shaking and so are his hands. “I can’t—I mean, fuck, I dropped out of high school.”

“You got your GED,” Russell says steadily. “And I didn’t do anything more than high school, either. You’ve been working here almost seven years, Mickey. You know everything I do.”

“I…” Mickey shakes his head in disbelief.

“My boy’s a real estate agent in Denver,” Russell says. “One girl’s a lawyer and the other’s an artist. They don’t want this place. None of their kids are going to want it, either, when they’re old enough. I want you to take over, Mickey. You’re the only one I trust with my garage.”

Mickey’s blinking hard now. “Fuck,” he says under his breath.

“Can he think about it?” Yevgeny says. He probably shouldn’t interrupt, but he can’t just sit here while his dad’s freaking out.

“Course he can,” Russell says, giving Yevgeny an approving nod, so maybe it’s not a bad thing that he broke into the conversation. “I figured you’d want to take some time, talk to Ian for sure.”

“Yeah,” Mickey says, sounding dazed. “I gotta talk to Ian.”

Russell leans down a little and pats the top of Mickey’s head. “You know I wouldn’t ask you to do it if I didn’t think you could.”

Mickey holds both his hands up in his signature _what the fuck_ look. “I don’t know why the fuck you’d think that.”

“Mickey,” Russell chastises gently. “You know why.” He nods once at him. “Think it over. Keep doing good work. Let me know what you decide.” He winks at Yevgeny. “Tell him what a good idea it is, okay?”

“I will,” Yevgeny promises. Russell leaves. Mickey just keeps shaking his head.

“Fuck me,” he says. “I can’t do this.”

“Dad, yes you can!” Yevgeny protests. “You can fix _any_ car.”

“Fixing the cars isn’t the hard part,” Mickey says. “I’d be doing invoices and shit. Ordering parts, working out the schedule for everyone who works here. Fuck, _advertising_. Oh, shit, the customer stuff. Talking to ‘em and shit, you know I can’t do that.”

“Whoa,” Yevgeny says, because Mickey is spiraling. He’s starting to breathe too fast. “We better go home so you can talk to Ian.” Yevgeny does not feel qualified to make Mickey feel better right now. That’s an Ian job for sure.

“Yeah,” Mickey agrees. “I need Ian.”

He washes up, and when they’re in the car, Yevgeny tries to sound casual as he asks, “Uh, Dad, how old were you when you first kissed Ian?”

“I don’t know, like sixteen or something?”

Yevgeny feels intensely relieved by that. Until he has another thought. “Was Ian your first kiss?”

“Nah,” Mickey says. “First one that mattered, but not first overall.”

Yevgeny’s heart sinks. “When you were my age, did you already kiss someone?”

Mickey looks over at him and squints. “You kiss someone?”

“No,” Yevgeny says, looking at his lap. “And Blake says I’m the only one in our class who hasn’t. _And_ he said I’m the only one who hasn’t—” Yevgeny blushes hard, but he knows he can say it to Mickey. Or mumble it, anyway, because even if Mickey’s cool with stuff like this, he’s still Yevgeny’s _dad_. “Who hasn’t even touched a boob.”

Mickey laughs really hard, which kind of sucks, but then he says, “Alright, well, first off, I _guarantee_ that’s not true. Someone’s lying for fucking sure. More than one, probably.”

“You think so?” Yevgeny asks.

“Oh, I’d put big money on it, kid. Especially since all those rich kids have been in school together that long. One guy gets a kiss, the other guys start feeling antsy about it and want to one-up him, and that’s when they start lying. Bet a whole bunch of ‘em suddenly came back from summer break saying they fucked someone, huh?” Mickey rolls his eyes. “It’s dumb kid shit.”

“Did you ever lie about having sex?”

“Sure,” Mickey says with a shrug. “Lied and said I was banging chicks all the time.”

“Oh, right,” Yevgeny says. “’Cause you weren’t supposed to be gay.”

“Yeah.” Mickey huffs. “My brothers were always teasing me ‘bout being a virgin and they always knew I was lying about the chicks. But I couldn’t tell ‘em I was too busy getting my—” Mickey cuts himself off. “Alright, well, you don’t need to hear all that.”

“Yeah, I don’t,” Yevgeny agrees, making a face. He doesn’t know how Mickey was going to finish that sentence, and he does not _want_ to. He knows _who_ he couldn’t tell anyone he was with, too. It was Ian. And Yevgeny really doesn’t want to think about any of his parents having sex, let alone with each other. “You and Ian were already having sex when you were my age?”

“Nah, Ian was fifteen and I was sixteen,” Mickey says. “So, you know. You got a year.” He thinks over what he said and shakes his head. “No, actually, fuck that. Don’t have sex for a long time.”

“Why?”

Mickey scratches the back of his neck. “God, why’s it always me who gets the sex questions?” He grumbles. “I’m fucking bad at this.”

“Okay,” Yevgeny says. “I can wait and ask Ian.” He’s not going to ask Svetlana. Not knowing her dad sold her to be a prostitute. Yevgeny’s only a month into his psychology class, but he already knows that would mess you up with sex big time.

“No, don’t ask Ian,” Mickey says, and then Yevgeny remembers Ian telling him about the old guys. “I don’t like Ian having to think about that shit. You know, the old fucking pervs and that shit he went through. For sure, though, do not have sex with anyone more than like two years older than you right now, you hear me?”

“I already promised Ian,” Yevgeny says. “And that’s gross anyway.”

“It is gross,” Mickey agrees. “And if some sick old fuck tries anything—”

“I tell you, and you’ll break every bone in their body and feed them their own toes before cramming their intestines back down their throat,” Yevgeny recites. “You’ve told me like a million times.”

Mickey huffs. “Good.” He clears his throat. “Look, sex is—it can be—” He licks his lips. “Some people can just fuck random people and there’s no feelings and it’s fine. They’re fine, it’s no big deal, they bang it out and everyone’s happy. But not everyone’s like that. And I don’t want you trying it when you’re so young, ‘cause I’m not a hundred percent sure but I’m _pretty_ sure it fucks you up to have too much sex when you’re just a kid.”

“Did it fuck you up to have a lot of sex with Ian when you were just kids?” Yevgeny asks.

Mickey blows out a breath and shakes his head. “Ian was not the one fucking me up when we were kids.”

Yevgeny processes that. “You had sex with other people besides Ian?”

“Yeah, kid, I did,” Mickey says quietly. “My first time, I was younger than you.”

“You _were_?” Yevgeny asks. That seems really young. Yevgeny doesn’t feel like a little kid or anything, but he doesn’t feel _old_.

Mickey sighs. “My dad—” He shifts in his seat and swallows. “So I’m thirteen. I’m just figuring out how to jack off. My dad brings this lady in. She’s gotta be, I don’t know, twenty-five, probably. He says you gotta fuck her, turn you into a man.”

“What?” Yevgeny says. He feels like he just went on a rollercoaster, the first big drop that sends your stomach reeling.

“Yeah,” Mickey says. “And I mean, this chick—she didn’t really want to be there. I was thirteen and I could tell that. She was like, hey, he’s kinda young, and my dad was like, shut the fuck up if you want your money. Probably some crystal, too, but I didn’t know he was selling that at the time.” Mickey shakes his head. “Okay, none of this is what I meant to say. Shit, I’m fucking you up.”

“ _All_ of you had sex with old people,” Yevgeny says, feeling like he’s going to throw up. “Does everyone do that?” He does not want to do that.

“ _No_ ,” Mickey says right away. “And I’m telling you right now, _you won’t_. We all had shitty parents who didn’t give a fuck about us. But you got parents who do, right? We’re protecting you from all the fucked up shit we went through.”

“Okay,” Yevgeny says weakly.

“Anyway, that time wasn’t as bad as the other—” Mickey cuts himself off abruptly.

“What?” Yevgeny asks. “The other what?”

Mickey lets out a shaky little breath. “Nah.” That’s all he says. He shakes his head, but it’s not a shake like he’s saying no. It’s a shake like he’s trying to get something out. Yevgeny’s heart is pounding. He’s not totally sure what Mickey was going to say, but based on what he was already talking about, Yevgeny thinks he might’ve just accidentally let slip that he had worse sex stuff than an old prostitute his dad told him to have sex with. Yevgeny stays quiet. He doesn’t want to push on that if Mickey doesn’t want to talk about it, and Mickey’s whole body is shaking a little bit. After a few minutes, Mickey starts talking again like the little interlude never happened.

“I mean, I was kinda excited, you know. My brothers were always talking about banging chicks and I wanted to know what it was all about. And that’s when I started figuring out I was gay, because this chick did _nothing_ for me. I mean, she was a whore, so she knew her shit, and it sure as hell felt good, but I had to keep my eyes closed the whole time ‘cause if I looked at her I was gonna lose it. She kept putting my hands on her tits and I was not into that at all. I thought my brothers were just making up how much they liked tits because I was like, _what the fuck?_ Didn’t get why anyone liked ‘em.”

“You didn’t know you were gay until you tried having sex?” Yevgeny asks. “What if I’m gay and I don’t know it?”

Mickey shrugs. “I don’t know. I mean, I kinda had some ideas before that, but I wasn’t sure. Guess you’ll figure it out eventually,” he says. “And hey, if you’re scared to tell us in _this_ family, we severely fucked up.”

That makes Yevgeny laugh. “Yeah, I don’t think I’d be worried about it.”

“Sure fucking hope not.”

Yevgeny bites his lip. “But you didn’t kiss that lady?”

“Oh, no, definitely not,” Mickey says. “First girl I kissed was Karen Jackson in eighth grade. She dated Lip later and there was all this shit that went down, so that’s all kinds of fucked up. And then after we kissed she went around talking about how I was trash and gross and everything. But just for the record, I did kiss her.” He raises his eyebrows. “Eat it, Lip. Anyway, I think someone dared her to do it but I didn’t give a fuck. She was gonna kiss me so I let her kiss me.”

“Did you like her?” Yevgeny asks.

Mickey shrugs and makes a face. “Knew I was supposed to,” he says. “Knew all the other guys in our class did. So I told myself I did. She kissed me and I was like… _that’s it?_ ” He shrugs again. “Tried kissing a few other girls after that, when they’d let me. It always felt like that. Thought it was just that kissing sucked.”

“But it doesn’t?” Yevgeny asks.

“Doesn’t have to,” Mickey assures him. “If it does, you’re doing it wrong, or maybe with the wrong person. ‘Cause once I started kissing Ian…” Mickey laughs a little. “Well, I didn’t ever want to fucking stop that.”

This is all a little gross, but it’s valuable information Yevgeny was looking for. “How long after you kissed Ian did you have sex?”

Mickey looks over at him really fast. “Uh…” He scrunches up his face while he thinks. Yevgeny can tell he’s deciding whether or not he’s going to tell Yevgeny the whole truth. “Alright, look, kid, me and Ian were banging for like…I don’t know, like two years before I kissed him.”

“You had sex before you even kissed?” Yevgeny asks. “ _Why_? He was your boyfriend.”

Mickey shakes his head. “No, he wasn’t my boyfriend for a long time. Probably not until that kiss. Or that’s when he started…almost being my boyfriend, maybe. I don’t know.” Mickey sighs. “It was all real fucked up, kid. ‘Cause of my dad, mostly. And ‘cause of me. I wouldn’t let him kiss me. Ian pretended he was dating Mandy so no one would know he was gay, and that was good ‘cause then he had a reason to come to my house. He’d come in my room and we’d bang and then we’d go hang out with Mandy. He wanted to be boyfriends and I—there was no fucking way I could do that. Took me a while to stop being so chickenshit and nut up to it.”

Yevgeny makes a face. “Well, your dad was really bad,” he points out. “It’s probably okay if you were scared about it.”

Mickey laughs a little. “Hey, thanks, doc,” he says, but he’s not actually making fun of Yevgeny. “You’re right, though. And I probably shouldn’t say all the shit I do about me being dumb or a pussy or any of that. I don’t want you thinking like I always did, you know? Like you’re, uh, not allowed to feel your feelings or what the fuck ever.”

“I feel a lot of feelings all the time,” Yevgeny says glumly. He’s pretty sure Mickey’s holding back a laugh at his expense, but it’s okay. He holds it all the way in, so Yevgeny doesn’t feel too stupid.

“Good,” Mickey says. “I know it feels shitty sometimes, and you think it’s better not to feel it all, but trust me. It’s better this way.”

Yevgeny sighs. “So I shouldn’t kiss Abigail?”

Mickey shrugs. “The other day you said you didn’t want to.”

“I don’t, really, but Blake thinks she wants to kiss me and maybe I should just do it so I’m not the only one who hasn’t kissed someone.”

Mickey makes a face. “Yeah, well, how you think that’s gonna make her feel if she finds out you just kissed her to get it over with? See, that’s why all this dating shit is complicated. You gotta think about someone else’s feelings all the goddamn time. And I don’t want you going around being one of those dickheads who does whatever the fuck he wants, alright? Don’t just get yours and fuck anyone else. That’s how I was and it fucked me up. Fucked me and Ian up for a long time. Mandy and Svet and Debbie and Fiona all dated lots of fuckers like that, too, and it fucked ‘em up good. So you be nice to people. Be like…respectful and all that shit, got it?”

“Got it,” Yevgeny promises, feeling kind of ashamed. Of course he shouldn’t use Abigail like that. If Debbie finds out he was thinking it, she’ll probably give him another lesson about objectifying women.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Mickey soothes. “This is the stuff you figure out as you grow up. I’m older than you so I’ve had more time to learn it and I learned from fucking it all up. It’s just really fucking hard to learn.”

“Yeah,” Yevgeny agrees. “I thought I was smart but I don’t know any of this shit.”

That makes Mickey laugh. “Yeah, well, that’s everyone, man. None of us really know what we’re doing. You just gotta do your best.”

“How did you know you loved Ian?” Yevgeny asks curiously. He can’t imagine wanting to marry someone.

Mickey thinks about it for a while. “Well, there was all this little stuff. I mean, I kissed him ‘cause there was this other guy and I got real fucking jealous. Didn’t want anyone else with him, you know? And even before that, it was—I don’t really know. I just wanted to see him all the time. I wanted to be in the same room with him, even if I was too scared to look at him or talk to him when we weren’t banging. He made me feel good. He listened to me and he…I don’t know, he had this way he’d breathe sometimes when he was annoyed.” Mickey laughs a little. “I’d listen for it. I wouldn’t ever say anything, but I liked hearing it. It was just something he did, you know? I didn’t know anyone else who did that and I thought it was funny.”

“So nothing big even happened?” Yevgeny asks. On movies people always have a big moment, some huge revelation when they realize it’s love. Yevgeny was expecting to hear something like that. “It was just weird, little stuff?”

“Yeah, mostly,” Mickey says. “Love’s a lot more weird, little stuff than big stuff, kid. Every day stuff. Like every single day, when Ian gets home from work he folds his goddamn pants. That’s fucking weird. But every single day, when I see him do it, I just…” He shrugs. “I love him.”

“Oh.” That’s not actually very helpful. Yevgeny asked how to know when he loves someone and Mickey’s answer was _I love him_. He didn’t _explain_ it. Yevgeny’s only ever loved his family, but he knows it can’t be the same.

“But, you know, there was this big something one time,” Mickey says slowly. “My dad caught us. And he—” Mickey stops and just breathes shakily for a second, eyes focused hard on the road, and Yevgeny’s suddenly terrified. Anything with Terry is bad. “He was mad as fuck. I thought he was gonna fucking kill me for real that time. He was hitting me, and I was thinking about if he killed me—” Mickey stops and licks his lips. Yevgeny can’t breathe. “Anyway, he hit Ian. And when I saw him hit Ian…” He shakes his head. “I never fought back when my dad hit me. Ever. My whole life. But when he hit Ian, I lost my shit. And I fought back. Because I didn’t care if he kicked the shit out of me every day of my life, but I wasn’t gonna let him hit Ian.” Mickey shrugs. “I guess if you’re looking for big shit, like one big moment, maybe that’s it.”

“Is that the bad stuff Ian was talking about before he ran away?” Yevgeny asks nervously. He feels bad for thinking this, but that doesn’t sound _that_ bad. He’s pretty sure Mickey’s dad shoving him into a barbed wire fence is worse than that.

“Some of it.” Mickey’s voice is all flat and closed off, so Yevgeny knows not to ask anything else. That’s a scary voice. He’s not scared like Mickey’s going to hurt him or anything—he can’t ever remember being afraid of that. He’s just scared for what happened to his dad. His dad sounds all rough and mean most of the time, but he’s actually so nice, and he cries so easily, and it makes Yevgeny’s stomach hurt to think about him getting hurt.

“Dad?” Yevgeny says quietly.

“Yeah.”

Yevgeny bites his lip. “I’m really glad you got away from your dad. I’m glad you didn’t…” Yevgeny isn’t sure how to phrase it. “I’m glad you’re not like him.” Yevgeny doesn’t think he’s tough enough to handle an abusive dad. He’s so glad he’s never had to find out. He knows it’s harder for people who grew up with bad parents to be good parents. He’s glad his parents all worked on it.

Mickey nods. He has tears in his eyes and his voice is choked when he speaks. “Yeah, me too,” he says. “You know, you’re a big part of why I’m not like him.” Mickey reaches over and ruffles Yevgeny’s hair. “I wasn’t gonna let anyone ever fucking hurt you. And that had to include me, too.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Yevgeny whispers.

Mickey swipes at his nose with the back of his hand. “You’re welcome. Thanks for helping me out, kid.”

“You’re welcome,” Yevgeny says. He feels a lot more grownup after this conversation. Kiss or no kiss, Yevgeny feels like he understands a little more about how romance shit works now. And he doesn’t have to worry about what Blake or Abigail or anyone else says about it.

 

“This is my homeroom class,” Yevgeny says, leading his parents into Ms. Davidson’s classroom. “And this teacher’s my math teacher, too.”

“Where is your seat?” Svetlana asks. “Sit and I take picture.”

“Mama,” Yevgeny laughs. “Why?”

“Is cool,” she insists. “Go.”

“Just humor her,” Ian says.

Yevgeny does. He would’ve anyway. Svetlana’s been tearing up all night. Yevgeny knows she liked school, back when she got to go. The fact that she never got to go to high school is one of the saddest parts of what happened to her. She’s so proud of him just for being old enough to be here, basically. She should be prouder of herself and Mickey and Ian for letting him go, since the only reason none of his parents graduated from high school was their shitty parents.

“Oh, Yevgeny, hello,” Ms. Davidson says. “Are these your parents?”

Mickey puts his hands in his pockets. He’s never been a handshake person. Ian extends his hand, though. “I’m Ian,” he says. “Yevgeny’s stepdad. And this is Mickey, my husband, and Svetlana, Yevgeny’s mom.”

“It’s so nice to meet you,” Ms. Davidson says warmly. “Yevgeny is such a joy to have in class.”

Mickey raises his eyebrows. _A joy_ , he mouths at Yevgeny with a smirk. Yevgeny ducks his head, trying not to laugh.

“Well, he’s great at home, too,” Ian says, shooting Yevgeny a proud smile.

“I was surprised to hear he’d skipped a grade,” Ms. Davidson says. “Honestly, a lot of students who skip a grade struggle with making friends, but Yevgeny’s been fitting right in. Changing schools is hard enough, but skipping a grade could make it a lot harder.”

“He’s always made tons of friends,” Ian says.

“He is sweet boy,” Svetlana says.

“He sure is,” Ms. Davidson agrees. Yevgeny can feel himself getting redder and redder. Mickey huffs and tucks Yevgeny under his arm.

“Get used to it, kid,” he murmurs. “I think everyone’s gonna be riding your dick for a long time.”

That makes Yevgeny finally lose his fight against laughing. He’s willing to bet no one else’s dad is talking about riding dicks in their homeroom class. He hides his giggles in Mickey’s armpit, feeling like a little kid again.

When they’re walking out of the classroom to go see other parts of the school, they pass Abigail. Her dad’s in a crisp suit with a tie. Her mom’s wearing a black dress with pearls at her throat. Ian’s still in his paramedic uniform. Svetlana’s still in her work suit, and Mickey dressed up as much as Mickey dresses up. He put on a collared shirt and tucked it into his jeans, but there’s a pretty obvious difference between Yevgeny’s parents and all the other parents here.

“Hi, Yevgeny,” Abigail says.

“Hi, Abigail,” Yevgeny answers. Mickey’s still got his arm around Yevgeny, and he makes a little noise in the back of his throat and gives Ian a significant look. They know Abigail’s the one who has a crush on Yevgeny. _If_ she really does. Everyone keeps saying she does, but Yevgeny’s not so sure. She hasn’t said she does. “Um, these are my parents,” Yevgeny rushes to add. Better for him to introduce them than for Mickey to say something first. It’s not that he deliberately embarrasses Yevgeny, but his idea of jokes can sometimes be embarrassing anyway.

“Hi,” Abigail says.

“This is my dad Mickey, and my stepdad Ian, and my mom Svetlana.”

Abigail’s dad sticks out his hand. Mickey bites his lip for a second, but he takes his arm off Yevgeny’s shoulder and shakes. Abigail’s mom is staring at Mickey’s hand. The right hand is the _FUCK_ hand. He definitely washed his hands after work, like he always does, but there’s some grease under a few of his fingernails, and his thumbnail is ragged from where he always bites it. Abigail’s dad has the cleanest hands Yevgeny’s ever seen. His nails are all the exact same length and they’re shiny.

Mickey’s ears are red when he pulls his hand back. He swallows and then nods. “Um, good to meet you,” he says, eyes flitting around. Ian puts his hand on Mickey’s back.

“You as well,” Abigail’s dad says. “Not sure we met at the parents’ meeting at the beginning of the school year.”

“We couldn’t make it,” Ian says. “The counselor who was handling Yevgeny’s transfer said we’d get a lot of the same information here tonight.”

“Sure,” Abigail’s mom says, smiling tightly. “Not sure we got you on the sign-up list for volunteering, though.”

“Uh—” Ian looks over at Mickey and Svetlana, who both shrug. “The counselor said she’d pass along my email address to the PTA president. But it’ll depend—I mean, getting time off work and everything.”

“Of course,” Abigail’s mom says. She didn’t shake anyone’s hand, and no one’s mentioned Abigail’s parents’ names. “It can be difficult to take time off when you don’t set your own schedule. Even to take time for your child.”

“We can get time off,” Mickey says, jaw clenched. “We can help.”

“Well, that’s fine, then,” Abigail’s dad cuts in smoothly. “I’m sure we’ll get it all ironed out.”

“We’d better go in,” Abigail’s mom says. “A lot of parents are here tonight and want to speak with the teachers.”

“Yeah,” Ian says. “I’m sure we’ll see you at other school stuff. Um, events.”

“I’m sure,” Abigail’s mom echoes, smile looking stuck on her face. She guides Abigail into the classroom with her back between Abigail and Yevgeny. Abigail looks over her shoulder and shrugs at Yevgeny.

Mickey’s shaking his head as they walk away, and Svetlana’s got a dark look on her face. Yevgeny feels like he missed something. Ian still has his hand on the small of Mickey’s back, and as they walk, he slides it around to Mickey’s hip so his whole arm is around Mickey’s waist.

“Hey,” Ian murmurs. “Don’t.”

“That was fucking humiliating,” Mickey says. He doesn’t even sound mad, like he normally does when he says something’s humiliating. He sounds…sad.

“What’s going on?” Yevgeny asks.

Mickey puts his hands on his face. “Sorry, kid, I probably just ruined any chance you had with that girl.”

“How?” Yevgeny asks, confused. “You shook his hand. You were really polite, Dad.” A lot more polite than he normally is. It was kind of weird. Yevgeny didn’t know Mickey had a polite setting.

“Dad didn’t do anything wrong,” Ian says, looking at Mickey as he says it.

“Parents did not like us,” Svetlana says, shooting a stink eye over her shoulder.

“What?” Yevgeny asks. “What are you talking about?”

“It was the way they looked at us, kid,” Mickey mutters. “They think we’re trash.”

“No, they don’t,” Yevgeny protests. “Abigail’s my friend. I think so, anyway.”

“Yeah, well, you weren’t the problem,” Mickey says.

“Neither were you,” Ian says firmly. “If they have a problem with us, they’re just stuck-up assholes who can kiss my fucking ass.”

Mickey gives Ian this look like he said something really romantic. Nothing happening tonight makes any sense to Yevgeny. “I’m so confused,” Yevgeny mumbles.

Mickey stops walking. He turns around and puts his hands on Yevgeny’s shoulders. “Hey. Look. People’ve been looking at me like that my whole fucking life. I know when someone’s thinking I’m the white trash kid who’s gonna steal their wallet. I’m really fucking glad you don’t know that look, okay?” He squeezes both of Yevgeny’s shoulders. “Just keep being the smart kid who gets into places like this.”

Yevgeny still doesn’t really understand how his parents can be so _sure_ that’s what just happened. Yevgeny didn’t see any look. Sure, he noticed Abigail’s mom looking at Mickey’s tattoos, but that doesn’t seem crazy. His fingers say _FUCK_. Yevgeny thinks a lot of people might stare at that.

But what Yevgeny does understand is that his dad is upset. He feels bad about whatever happened with Abigail’s parents. And from what he said about blowing Yevgeny’s chance, he probably feels guilty, too. Yevgeny doesn’t want his dad to feel like that. He didn’t do anything wrong.

“Well,” Yevgeny says with a shrug. “I don’t _like_ like her anyway. So I didn’t need a shot.”

Mickey just looks at him for a second. Then he shakes his head, eyes getting shiny. He pulls Yevgeny in for a hug. “Fuck, little man,” he says, voice thick. “I love you, you know that?”

“Yeah, Dad, I know,” Yevgeny promises, not even chafing against the _little man_ nickname that feels undeniably babyish. “I love you, too.”

“You really do, don’t you?” Mickey sounds almost wondering. Svetlana comes in close and kisses Yevgeny’s cheek, and then Ian comes over and puts his arms around all of them so they’re all wrapped up in a family hug like they used to do a lot when Yevgeny was a little kid.

And yeah, Yevgeny loves his family. But he still hopes none of the kids from his school come down this hallway and _see_ him hugging his parents. As they’re walking down the hall to Yevgeny’s next classroom, Ian looks at Mickey and says, “You know most of the time when we were younger, people thought you were going to steal their wallet because you’d already done it to them once.”

Mickey says, “Hey, want to know what I remember from high school?” Then he pushes Ian into a locker. Some other kids from the class walk by as they’re all laughing and Ian puts Mickey in a headlock, but Yevgeny’s having too much fun to be self-conscious.

 

The next day at school, Yevgeny knows he’s not just being paranoid—people are looking at him. He even sees two girls put their heads together and whisper _while_ looking at him. They’re not even trying to hide the fact that they’re talking about him.

“What the hell’s going on?” Yevgeny asks Blake at his locker.

Blake whistles. “Man, everyone’s talking about your dad.”

“My dad?” Yevgeny asks. “Why?”

“He was at parents’ night last night, right? The guy with the big scar on his face and the tattoos? He looks super badass, by the way,” Blake adds quickly.

“What are people saying?” Yevgeny asks, heart starting to sink.

“Well…” Blake shrugs. “I mean, none of us know anyone with a _FUCK_ tattoo, especially not a grownup.”

“It’s actually both hands,” Yevgeny admits. “One hand says _FUCK_ and the other says _U-UP_.”

Blake cracks up laughing. “That’s amazing.”

“So what are people saying about my dad?” Yevgeny presses.

Now Blake looks uncomfortable. “Your parents are all really young.”

“Yeah,” Yevgeny says. “My mama’s the oldest and she’s thirty-four. My dad was still seventeen when I was born.”

“Man…” Blake looks away, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well _some_ people are saying your dad looked sort of like…like white trash.” He says the last part in a rush.

Yevgeny feels like someone just slapped him. Mickey was right. Yevgeny thought he was overreacting, because he does that sometimes. It’s his anxiety and PTSD and all that other stuff. But he was right. The other parents _were_ judging him.

“My dad isn’t white trash,” Yevgeny says, lips numb.

“No, I know!” Blake promises. “That’s just what—you know, kids here are assholes, they’re all stuck up and everything. I’m sure your parents are totally cool.”

Yevgeny narrows his eyes. “So they’re talking about all my parents,” he says. “Not just my dad.”

Blake winces. “I mean, everyone saw your dad and his, um, husband fighting in the hallway. Like _fighting._ ”

Yevgeny huffs. “They were just playing around,” he says. “They do stuff like that all the time. What, no one else’s parents tease each other?”

“My dad’s never put my mom in a headlock,” Blake says.

“I guess it might be different since they’re both guys,” Yevgeny points out.

“Well…and you showed up with all three of ‘em. Your parents are divorced and your dad is remarried to a _dude_ but you all live together? It’s—” Blake shrugs apologetically. “It’s kind of weird.”

Yevgeny takes a deep breath and holds it while he counts to ten. He lets it out slowly. It’s one of the breathing exercises Mickey and Ian always teach him. “It’s not weird,” he says, keeping his voice even. “It’s our family. My dad married my mom because he wasn’t allowed to be with Ian. And my mom doesn’t have any family. She’s known my dad and Ian for a long time, and they’re her family now. _We’re_ a family. So when my dad figured out he _could_ be with Ian it wasn’t sad when they got divorced and she was happy for them when they got married. It doesn’t—” Yevgeny’s voice falters a little as he remembers what Svetlana told him all those years ago when Brad was stirring this shit up for the first time. “It doesn’t have to be what _you_ know to be real.”

“Okay, sorry,” Blake mumbles. They’re awkward for a second. It’s hard not to be awkward after you chastise your friend.

Yevgeny swallows hard. “My parents have had people thinking they’re trash their whole lives,” he says, remembering Mickey’s words. “It’s not fair. They all had really bad shit happen to them and they didn’t get to choose any of it. They chose for us to be a family and it’s—this is something good for them now.”

Blake looks supremely uncomfortable. “Okay.”

Yevgeny sighs. “I left my phone in my locker,” he says. “I’m going to get it.” He gets his phone, and then Abigail walks by. “Abigail,” he says. She cringes. She comes closer and shushes him.

“Look, Yevgeny, I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “You’re cute, and you’re really nice, but my parents would die if we dated.”

Yevgeny can’t breathe. “Because my parents aren’t rich?”

“Well, I think you’re kind of immature,” Abigail says. “You’re just too young.”

Yevgeny huffs. “I wasn’t too young yesterday. You were hanging all over me even when I was trying to get away.” He doesn’t even like her, but he’s pissed that she thinks she can just do this.

“Look, Yevgeny, we’re just really different. I mean, I don’t think you take school seriously enough, you know? And you really should, since you’re here on scholarship.”

“I take school seriously,” Yevgeny says coldly. No one has ever accused him of that. His parents are always worried he takes school _too_ seriously. “And yeah. I am here on a fucking scholarship. What, you didn’t know you were slumming until last night? Let me guess, by the time we’re seniors you’ll hate your parents and want me to fuck you so you can piss them off.” That might’ve been a step too far, but he’s heard Lip and Carl talk about girls who do that.

“Oh, my God,” Abigail says, giving him a look. “I always thought you were so polite, but this…” She gestures at him. “I guess I didn’t know you at all.”

“I guess you didn’t,” Yevgeny agrees. “Guess I’m just poor white trash like my parents. And if you got a problem with that, fuck you.”

He hears a few scandalized gasps as he turns and walks away, but he doesn’t bother looking around. He’s seen how Mickey walks when he’s being tough, the swagger like he doesn’t care. Yevgeny channels that now. He walks off to English with his head held high.

 

Of course, by the time he gets home, he’s wracked with guilt and feeling pretty bleak about the whole thing. He’s upset that kids think his parents are weird or trashy, but he also feels bad for saying that stuff to Abigail. He _just_ promised Mickey the other day he’d be nice and respectful.

“Hey, your mom’s out with Nika again,” Mickey calls when Yevgeny comes inside. “Ian’s gonna get pizza on his way home. Some Gallaghers are coming, I think, I don’t know which fucking ones, maybe all of ‘em, I guess.”

“Okay,” Yevgeny says. He has to pass the kitchen to get to his room, so he tries to steel himself to make sure his face is normal. Mickey’s not even looking at him, anyway. He’s got his reading glasses on and a book open in front of him. That gives Yevgeny some pause. It’s not like Mickey’s illiterate or anything, but he doesn’t read very often. Magazines, sometimes, but not actual books much. “What are you reading?” Yevgeny asks curiously.

Mickey’s face goes a little pink. “Oh. Uh…” He lifts up the book. _Small Business for Dummies_. He huffs. “Ian thinks I should take over at the garage. Says—well, he thinks I’ll be good at it.” He shrugs, rubbing at his bottom lip and looking away.

“Yeah,” Yevgeny says. His stomach hurts, looking at his dad with his scar on his face and his tattooed knuckles and his bitten-up lips and his book for dummies. This has never happened to him before. He’s always just seen his parents as his parents; grownups, people who knew everything and did everything for him. Right now, he’s looking at his dad and realizing Mickey really is still _young_ , and all that horrible stuff happened to him when he was just a kid, some when he was Yevgeny’s age and younger. He was a kid once, and he was scared, and he was hurt, and no one did anything to help him. It’s hard to swallow. “You will.”

“I don’t know,” Mickey mutters. “Thought this might—I mean, I know it’s just a book. Probably can’t actually fucking help. But figured…well, you know, it says for dummies, so maybe even I can understand it.”

Yevgeny’s eyes feel hot and a lump is rising in his throat. He knows his dad. He knows when Mickey’s downplaying something because he’s not sure it’ll work out and he doesn’t want to get his hopes up. Yevgeny can see the little undercurrent of excitement Mickey’s trying to hide. Mickey never thinks he’s going to be good at anything, even after all these years away from the people who always told him he wouldn’t. Yevgeny thinks of the other parents, the kids at school who judged his dad without knowing anything about him, without knowing how shitty his life was for so long or how hard he tries at everything. Yevgeny tries to keep his smile as normal as possible and not let his chin tremble.

“That’s great, Dad,” he says. “It’ll be really great.”

Mickey ducks his head. “Thanks.” He looks up. “Hey, why don’t you bring your homework out here? We can study together.” He huffs a little laugh at himself. “Maybe that’s lame. I don’t know.”

Yevgeny swallows hard. “It’s not lame,” he says softly. He pulls out a chair and sits at the table. “It’s cool.”

Mickey looks so pleased with himself Yevgeny has to dig his fingernails into his palm to keep from crying. How could all those fucking assholes at school think there’s anything wrong with Mickey? Yevgeny makes himself focus on his psych book to stop from thinking about it. He realizes there’s some irony there, but he’s choosing to ignore that, too.

Mickey taps his fingers a lot while he reads. Yevgeny’s used to it, though; Mickey hardly ever sits completely still. Ian said it had something to do with being worried he wouldn’t be able to get up or something. Yevgeny doesn’t really get it, but then again, he can’t understand all his dad’s psychological issues; he’s only in an intro class.

“Hey, Dad?” Yevgeny says, and he laughs a little when Mickey jumps. “Um, what year did you and Mama get married?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“It’s for my social studies class. We’re doing this family history thing.”

Mickey snorts. “Alright, whatever. It was like…” He squints while he thinks. “Uh, what year were you born? How old are you?”

Yevgeny rolls his eyes. “2014, Dad.”

“Yeah, okay. So we got married right before that. December. Just before Mandy and Ian got out on Christmas break.”

Yevgeny blinks. “But my birthday’s in June.”

“Huh?” Mickey asks. “Yeah, I know that. So?”

“So…you got married because Mama was already pregnant?” He realizes.

Mickey licks his lips. “Oh. You didn’t know that?”

“No.”

“Sorry,” Mickey says. “I didn’t know we never told you that.” He shrugs. “But we got married before you were born, if that’s something that matters.”

“What do you mean?” Yevgeny asks. He doesn’t know why that would matter.

“I don’t know, some people care about that. Not being a bastard or whatever. Mandy says it mattered back in the olden times for land or money or some shit.”

Yevgeny looks at his father for a second. “Why did you have sex with Mama?” He asks. “You said you were boyfriends with Ian when you were sixteen. So then how come you and Mama had sex and got married when you were seventeen?”

Mickey brings his hand up to his mouth to bite his thumbnail. “Told you. My dad wanted me to.”

“Couldn’t you just lie? You said you lied before. Wasn’t Ian mad?” Mickey’s chewing at his lips and bouncing his leg. He’s anxious. His eyes keep flitting around, never settling on Yevgeny’s face. “Dad?” Yevgeny presses.

“Look, I don’t know what I can—some of this is up to your mom,” Mickey says weakly. “Maybe she doesn’t want you to know.”

“Why?” Yevgeny asks.

Mickey’s starting to breathe faster. He pushes back from the table and starts to pace. “Kid, this is—we ain’t talking about this, okay? That’s it. Final.”

Yevgeny gets that ugly feeling in his chest he got when Abigail was telling him he wasn’t good enough for her. He’s so sick of people making decisions for him when it’s _about_ him. He gets that his dad had a shitty life, but Yevgeny thinks he has a right to know why the hell he even exists.

“I don’t have a right to know why the fuck you even had me?” He asks.

Mickey tips his head back and looks at the ceiling, blowing out a breath in a puff. “I don’t know.” His voice is shaking. “I can’t—” He puts his hands in his hair. “I gotta think, okay? Can you just give me a fucking second to think?” His hands are trembling.

Yevgeny starts to feel a little alarmed. He hasn’t seen Mickey like this in a long time. Nowadays, it’s usually a combination of shaking hands and biting nails _or_ pacing and yanking at his hair. Right now he’s doing all of that. Yevgeny has a sort of fuzzy memory of Mickey crying in Yevgeny’s bed and then running away. He knows it was right after Mickey’s dad died. Maybe he’s about to do that again.

The door opens and Ian walks in, followed by Lip and Liam and Carl. “Boys’ night!” Ian calls out happily. He comes into the kitchen and sets the pizza boxes on the counter. He looks between Mickey and Yevgeny and the smile falls off his face. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Mickey mutters. “I’ll get plates.”

“Mickey, you’re shaking,” Ian says quietly. He puts his hands on Mickey’s face and Mickey stops moving completely. He closes his eyes and shudders. “Hey. Mick. Hey.”

“I asked why he had sex with Mama instead of just lying,” Yevgeny admits, voice small. “He told me he loved you, so I don’t know why he’d do that.”

“Fuck,” Ian says under his breath. Mickey grabs onto Ian’s shirt with both hands. “Yev, that’s—ah, shit.”

“Hey, we—” Lip looks at them, Ian holding onto Mickey’s face and Mickey clinging to him. “Yeah, okay, got it.” He turns around and walks right back out of the kitchen.

“Can’t do this right now,” Mickey mumbles.

Ian strokes his thumb over Mickey’s cheek and leans in to kiss him. “You don’t have to do anything. Look at me, Mick; open your eyes for a sec.” Mickey does. Ian smiles at him. “There you are. You with me?”

Mickey nods. “Here.”

“Okay. That’s good. You want to go to bed?”

“I wanna—” Mickey’s voice breaks and he stops. “I want to just eat some fucking pizza and be normal.”

Ian glances over at Yevgeny. Yevgeny isn’t sure what his face is doing, but if he had to guess, he’d imagine it’s nothing good. He feels like he’s going to burst into tears at any second. It’s been a long, long time since he’s seen Mickey like this. He can hardly remember the last time it happened. And it’s all his fault.

Ian sighs. “Mick, I think we gotta explain some shit.” Mickey leans forward and presses his face into Ian’s neck. He murmurs something Yevgeny can’t make out. “I know,” Ian says, stroking his fingers through Mickey’s hair. “But we can’t just leave it like this. Look at him.”

Mickey doesn’t even take his head off Ian’s shoulder, just moves around a little so he can peek over at Yevgeny. “Shit.”

“I’m sorry,” Yevgeny says. Even to his own ears, he can hear how thin and scared his voice is. “I didn’t mean to.”

“This is not your fault,” Mickey says firmly. “Fuck. This is my fault.”

“ _No_ ,” Ian says, just as firmly. “It is absolutely not.”

“Ian, I can’t—” Mickey says helplessly, tears in his voice. “Look what I did. I’m fucking all this up. He’s—shit, he’s all scared.”

“So we’ll explain,” Ian says patiently. “I’ll tell my brothers to go.”

“They already fucking know anyway,” Mickey mutters.

“Everyone knows but me?” Yevgeny finds his voice to say. “And it’s _about_ me? That’s not fair.”

“Oh, this is definitely not fair,” Ian agrees darkly. “You don’t know fucking half of it.”

Yevgeny feels, suddenly, like he doesn’t want to know. He can tell it’s something terrible. As soon as they tell him, he’s going to know something awful. Right now he’s scared and worried, but he doesn’t know. He can think of a different reason, not a horrible, scary reason, that Mickey’s reacting like this. He can just say it’s because Mickey has bad reactions to stuff. It doesn’t have to be anything to do with Yevgeny.

Except Yevgeny wants to know. He feels like he _deserves_ to know. If he just lost all his friends today by declaring himself white trash, he should get to know why they even brought him into the world in the first place.

“Come here,” Ian decides. “We’re going to Yev’s room.” He keeps his arms around Mickey while they go down the hall. “Eat the pizza,” he tells his brothers. “We’re—” He shakes his head. “I don’t know how long it’s gonna be.”

Lip looks really serious. “Everything okay?”

“Yevgeny’s got some questions about…where he came from,” Ian says delicately. Understanding fills Lip’s face. And then Lip looks really sad. The bad feeling in Yevgeny’s stomach gets worse. Carl swears under his breath and Liam gives Yevgeny this wince like he just got in trouble or something. Yevgeny swallows hard and follows Mickey and Ian down the hall.

“Gotta call Svet,” Mickey says once they’re in Yevgeny’s room with the door closed. “She might not—it’s gotta be cool with her to tell him.”

“I know,” Ian agrees. He sighs. “She might want to be here. Or…” He runs a hand through his hair. “Maybe she won’t.”

“I’m getting really scared,” Yevgeny admits.

“I’m sorry, Yev,” Ian says, coming over and putting an arm around Yevgeny. He leads Yevgeny to sit down on the bed. “We knew someday this was gonna come up, and we thought if we could…I don’t know. Prepare for it. Maybe we’d handle it better. But we didn’t prepare, so obviously we’re not handling it very well.” He huffs. “We’re probably traumatizing you a lot more than we need to.”

“Continue the fucking cycle,” Mickey mutters. “Give him something to talk about in therapy.”

“Give me a sec,” Ian says. He doesn’t leave the room, but he goes over to stand by the door to call Svetlana. Yevgeny looks cautiously at Mickey.

“Sorry, little man,” Mickey says quietly. “Sorry I lost my shit. I really thought I was doing better than that.” He puts an arm around Yevgeny, kind of tentatively, and Yevgeny leans into him. Mickey blows out a breath and rubs Yevgeny’s arm.

“You don’t have to come back for it,” Ian’s murmuring into the phone. “If you don’t want to be here…” He nods a few times, even though Svetlana can’t see him. “Yeah, I know. It’s gonna be—yeah. It’s up to you, Lana. Hey, no, don’t say that. He’s never—Lana, come on. He loves you. Yes, he does. He still will.”

“Why wouldn’t I love Mama?” Yevgeny asks, feeling panicky now.

“There’s no fucking reason for you to be mad at her,” Mickey says quickly. “But she doesn’t always see it that way.”

Ian comes back over to the bed with a sigh. “She’s scared,” he says, kind of unnecessarily. “But she said fine.”

“She want us to wait for her?”

“What do you think?” Ian asks.

Then he and Mickey just sit there looking at each other. They’re all sitting on the bed, Mickey hanging onto Yevgeny and Ian hanging onto Mickey, and no one’s talking. Yevgeny wants to point out the longer they draw this out the more freaked he gets, but he holds back. He’s still scared to hear this.

“Okay,” Mickey finally says. “Remember when I told you my dad caught us one time?”

“Yeah,” Yevgeny says apprehensively.

Mickey gnaws at his lip for a second. “So…he caught us. And he was, uh, pissed.” He snorts. “Not really sure there’s a word that fucking explains what he was. Anyway. Then he called someone who sent your mom over to the house,” Mickey says. He’s looking down at his legs. He’s rubbing his free hand down his leg over and over again. “And he—and that’s when your mom and I had sex.”

There seem to be some pretty big holes in that story. “Why?” Yevgeny asks.

“He thought, um…” Mickey blows out a breath. “He thought if I fucked her, I wouldn’t be gay anymore.”

Yevgeny processes that. “But…that doesn’t make sense.”

“Yeah,” Mickey agrees flatly. “Well, he did a lot of shit that doesn’t make sense.”

“So Ian went home and then you and Mama had sex instead?”

Ian and Mickey share a look. “No,” Ian finally says. “Terry didn’t let me go home.”

The bottom of Yevgeny’s stomach drops out. “Why not?”

“He had a fucking gun, kid,” Mickey says. Yevgeny can tell he’s sort of trying to be gentle, but he’s freaking out. His hands are still shaking so bad he’s kind of moving Yevgeny with them. He’s never really good at sugarcoating things in the best of times, but when he’s all freaked out like this any shred of decorum he has goes out the window. “He wanted Ian to watch.”

“Wait.” Yevgeny feels like his brain is working through this really slowly, like when he broke his arm three summers ago and had to take drugs that made his head feel like mush. “Are you saying your dad…had a gun? And he _made_ you have sex with Mama? Or he was gonna—was he gonna shoot you?”

“No,” Mickey says, but before Yevgeny can breathe a sigh of relief he corrects, “He was probably gonna shoot Ian.”

“But that’s…” Yevgeny looks at Mickey, but Mickey won’t look at him, so he looks at Ian. Ian looks at him steadily, but he has tears in his eyes, and it makes that hot ball of tears rise up in Yevgeny’s throat again. “But isn’t that…?” Yevgeny’s heard enough of Debbie’s lectures about consent to know what that means.

“Yeah, Yev,” Ian says softly, cutting Yevgeny off before he can work up to saying the actual word.

Yevgeny feels like he can’t take a full breath. “So you—did Mama get pregnant from that?”

“Yeah.”

“So I’m…” Yevgeny shakes his head. He feels like he’s going to throw up. “Did you even want me?”

Mickey takes his arm from around Yevgeny’s shoulder and puts both his hands over his face. He breathes like that for a second. Then he looks at Yevgeny. “No,” he admits. He doesn’t lie to Yevgeny. Yevgeny used to think that was such a cool thing, but right now he’s not so sure. He starts to cry for real. “I didn’t _then_ , but I—Yevgeny. I love you. I—you—” Mickey shakes his head. “Fuck, kid, I don’t know if I’d be alive if I didn’t have you.”

“What does that mean?” Yevgeny sobs.

“When I was in the joint, I stopped caring about…pretty much anything.” Mickey huffs. “And when I got out, I didn’t really see any point in anything then, either. But you—I mean, fuck. I knew if I let anything happen to me, it’d fuck you up bad. And at first I only kinda cared, like I just thought I wouldn’t do anything to myself but I wouldn’t try too hard to not let anything happen to me. But the more you wanted me around, the more I—I wanted to _be_ around. You came in every day to see if I was there, so I couldn’t drink myself to death. Didn’t want you to see a body when you were that young. And then you had those kids picking on you, so I had to make sure you were getting home from school. You were all excited to see me when I got there, so I thought, well, can’t do anything during the day and leave the kid waiting. And then we’d go home and read, and I was worried you’d never fucking learn to read so I couldn’t leave you hanging then, either, and that was the whole day. So I had to make sure I was okay and sticking around. For you.” Mickey wipes his eyes and his nose. “You saved my life, kid.”

Yevgeny’s crying hard now. He doesn’t like hearing his dad talk about not wanting to live. That’s scary. He doesn’t know what he’d do without Mickey. “But…” Yevgeny doesn’t know what to say. “But you only married Mama because of me, right? So I ruined your life. And Ian ran away after you married Mama and then his mom made him have sex with all those old guys for drugs so I ruined Ian’s life, too.” Yevgeny’s in full meltdown mode now, crying like he hasn’t in years. He doesn’t even care if he’s being a baby right now. He thinks it’s pretty justified.

“Yev, you did not ruin my life,” Ian promises tearfully. “A lot of what happened to me when I ran away and was with my mom was because it was the first time I was ever manic. I didn’t know how to handle it. And that would’ve happened if I was with my mom or not. That’s not because I ran away. That’s not your fault. We love you so much, Yev. You’re the best thing in our lives.”

Mickey nods, squeezing Yevgeny close to him again. “You’re such a good fucking kid,” he says. “So much better than I deserve. When you were little I’d go watch you sleep and think, how the fuck did I get this? How did I get so lucky?”

Yevgeny buries his face in Mickey’s chest, sobbing. His glasses are digging into his face and he can’t even care. He doesn’t know how to even think about all this. How can he possibly process this? He doesn’t know what to think or what to say. He doesn’t even know what to feel.

After he cries himself out, he pulls back. He takes off his smudged glasses. He gets off his bed and walks over to his desk, where his glasses case and his cleaning rag are. He takes his time wiping off his glasses. When he finally puts them back on and looks at Ian and Mickey, they’re holding onto each other, eyes puffy.

“You got questions?” Mickey asks.

Yevgeny actually laughs. Does he have questions? He doesn’t even know. What the fuck questions can he even ask right now? “No,” he says, because he can’t think of anything else to say.

“Are you sure?” Ian checks.

“I want to go to bed,” Yevgeny says.

Ian and Mickey both hesitate. “Right now?”

“Yes,” Yevgeny says. He’s starting to tear up again. “Can you get out, please?”

Mickey sags a little, but he takes a deep breath and stands up. “Okay,” he says quietly. “Whatever you want.”

“I’m going to bed.”

“Aren’t you hungry?” Ian tries.

“No,” Yevgeny says.

“Okay,” Mickey repeats. “We’re going.” He swallows hard. “I love you, okay?”

“Okay,” Yevgeny says, and he sees Mickey flinch a little. He didn’t mean to imply he doesn’t love Mickey, too. He just feels like all his words are stuck in his throat.

“I love you, too,” Ian adds. Yevgeny nods at him. They both stand there for another second, looking at him, but he won’t meet their eyes. Then Mickey tugs Ian out of the room.

Yevgeny doesn’t leave his room for the rest of the night. He doesn’t brush his teeth, he doesn’t go to the bathroom, he doesn’t go get a glass of water. He goes to his closet and takes down his old stuffed cat, the one Ian got him after his stray cat, Sasha, stopped coming around. They never found out if Sasha died or just moved on to another neighborhood. He hasn’t slept with Fake Sasha since he was nine, probably, but right now he holds that thing like it’ll actually help. He’d chopped off part of one ear, so the stuffed animal would match the real Sasha, and there are loose threads all around it. Svetlana always told him not to pull on them or the whole thing would come unraveled.

Yevgeny understands that a hell of a lot better right now.

He doesn’t cry himself to sleep. But his sleep is fitful all night. At one point, his door opens. It only takes a second for him to know it’s his mother. He can smell her perfume. She stays in his room for a long time. He knows she was worried she’d hate him. He should roll over and tell her he doesn’t.

He can’t. He can’t move. He just lies there and keeps his breathing even until, eventually, she leaves.

In the morning, his parents are careful. No one says anything beyond _good morning_ , but they’re all watching him carefully. “I don’t want to talk about it,” Yevgeny mumbles into his oatmeal. So they don’t talk about it. He can’t talk about his feelings, because right now, he has none. He knows Mickey said it was worse to feel nothing, and Yevgeny kind of gets what he meant. He just feels empty right now.

He gets on the L to go to school, just like always. Mickey asked if he wanted to stay home and he said no. “I have a quiz in history,” he’d said, which is true. Ian asked if he wanted a ride and he said, “No, thank you.”

Yevgeny watches as the stops whiz by, heading to school, and then suddenly he gets off four stops before he should. He sits on a bench and he uses his emergency credit card with Ian’s information on it to book himself a Greyhound ticket on his phone. He books it as an adult, so he doesn’t need a consent form, but if anyone sees him and realizes he’s alone, he’s going to get caught.

He doesn’t care. He follows that empty feeling in his chest to the station and waits for the bus. When he goes up to the counter to pick up his ticket, the guy looks at him for a second and Yevgeny stares back steadily. He doesn’t blink. The guy hesitates for a second. “Your parents with you?”

“Yeah,” Yevgeny says. “My dad’s in the bathroom.”

“You have photo ID?” The guy asks.

Yevgeny has one of those state ID cards, because his parents are paranoid and always think he’s going to get kidnapped or murdered or something. If he gets kidnapped, he’s supposed to drop his ID card so they know where he got taken from. He hands it over without flinching. Confidence, he’s learned, is a key factor in getting away with stuff. Liam taught him that once when they were stealing candy from the corner market, the one Mickey and Ian used to work at when it had different owners. Yevgeny only did it once and then he cried and told his parents about it because he felt so guilty.

The guy hesitates another second. He looks at Yevgeny, and Yevgeny’s pretty sure he’s done for. He looks at Yevgeny’s private school uniform and the neat knot of his tie, and then he says, “Well…okay.”

On the bus, Yevgeny takes a seat in the back. He puts his phone on airplane mode. Then he plugs in his earbuds, turns on his music, and keeps his eyes closed the whole way.

 

“Oh, fucking Christ,” Mandy breathes when she opens her door. “Get the fuck in here.” She yanks him inside. “You have any fucking idea how worried we’ve all been?” She already has her phone to her ear. “He’s here, Mickey. I got him. I don’t know. I haven’t asked him anything yet. Well, I figured it would be better for me to make sure you all knew he was alive and safe, okay? I’ll call you back.” She doesn’t even wait before hanging up. She pulls Yevgeny out of the doorway and into the living room. She all but shoves him down onto the couch. Her lips are all chapped like she’s been biting at them, and her hair is crazy like she’s been tugging at it.

The first feeling Yevgeny feels in almost half a day is regret. Mandy’s obviously been panicking, and it’s equally obvious that the rest of the family is, too. Yevgeny knows when he turns off airplane mode, he’s going to have a million texts and voicemails. He wonders how long it took for them to realize he was gone. The school is big on tardies and unexcused absences, so they might’ve gotten a call right after homeroom. That means his parents have been freaking out for probably around four hours while he was taking a really long nap.

Mandy pulls him in for a long, hard hug. “Don’t you ever fucking scare me like that again,” she whispers shakily. “God.”

“I’m sorry,” Yevgeny whispers, tears pricking his eyes. “I didn’t know what to do. Dad told me—”

“I know what he told you,” Mandy says darkly. She puts her hands on his face. “I’m so sorry, Yev.”

She looks kind of expectant, like she thinks he’s going to say something, but he has nothing to say. Why is she sorry? None of this has anything to do with her. Mandy sighs and lets go of his face, but she grabs his hand instead. She opens her mouth to say something, but then she stops. She takes a deep breath and says, “You’re probably hungry, huh?”

Yevgeny blinks at her. “You’re not gonna make me talk about it?”

Mandy shrugs. “Figuring out how you’re feeling and how to deal with it’s a lot fucking easier on a full stomach, I can tell you that.” She stands up and tugs at his hand to make him stand, too. “Let’s go.”

She makes him take off his shoes and his backpack and leads him into the kitchen. She sits him down at the chipped little table in the corner and bustles around pulling stuff out of the fridge.

“How do you feel about Chinese food?” She asks.

“What kind?”

“Kung pao chicken.”

“Um…good, I guess.” This all feels completely surreal. After everything that’s happened in the past twenty-four hours, sitting in his aunt’s kitchen eating leftover takeout feels like a weird dream.

Mandy doesn’t say anything while she heats up the food. She brings two bowls and two forks over to the table and sits next to him.

“Where’s Ryan?” Yevgeny finally asks. Mandy’s been dating the same guy for over two years now. Mickey said it’s a record, and they all even like the guy. He’s a middle school PE teacher and he sends Mandy flowers at work every Friday afternoon. She works in an OBGYN office taking ultrasounds of people’s babies.

“He’s chaperoning the choir kids on some retreat this weekend,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I guess the nerds are really fucking horny and they need all the teachers they can get to make sure no one comes back pregnant.”

The word reminds them both of what Yevgeny just learned about his own life, and then they can’t look each other in the eye. Yevgeny puts down his fork. “I didn’t know Mama would ever do that to someone,” he says quietly, squeezing his eyes shut.

“It’s not your mom’s fault,” Mandy says sharply. “You know, right? That her dad sold her?”

“Yeah, but—”

“No,” Mandy cuts him off. “Yev, do you know what happens to girls who say no on a job?”

“No,” he admits.

“The pimp beats you up, usually,” Mandy says. “If you’re a trouble maker or it was a special client, he might beat you up more than usual. He might let the john do it.” She shakes her head. “Might let the john do a lot of things.”

Yevgeny can taste the kung pao chicken threatening to come back up. Mandy sounds like she knows pretty intimately what she’s talking about. He can’t think about that on top of everything else. Not right now. “So if Mama didn’t do it…”

“They could’ve killed her, Yev,” Mandy says.

Yevgeny wipes his running nose. “Why is everything so awful?” He asks. “How come they all had the worst lives?”

Mandy sighs. “I don’t know. It’s not fair, that’s for sure.”

“How come Dad doesn’t hate Mama?”

“He did,” Mandy admits. “For a while. At first. He hated her a lot.”

“How come he doesn’t anymore?” Yevgeny asks.

Mandy shrugs. “Well, for one thing, Ian came back. Right before you were born. And then you were born, and Ian loved you right away. He’s always loved babies. Some stuff happened, and Mickey came out and fought Terry and Terry was back in jail, and then it was…” Mandy smiles a little, looking far away. “It was kind of like how you guys are now. We were all living together in the house. We all found this truce. We all get better when Terry’s not around. Nicer to each other. I think Mickey realized your mom didn’t really have a choice, either, and he decided to just ignore the bad stuff and focus on the good.”

“Am I the good?” Yevgeny asks softly.

“You’re the best,” Mandy promises him. “Look, I don’t know what exactly Mickey said. He couldn’t remember it all, not the details.”

“He said…” Yevgeny swallows hard. “He said he didn’t even want me.” He feels guilty for focusing so hard on that part. His dad revealed to him something obviously hugely traumatizing, and all Yevgeny can focus on is Mickey saying he didn’t want Yevgeny.

Mandy winces. “Yeah, well, it’s true. At _that_ point, he didn’t want a kid.” She shrugs. “He was seventeen, Yev. And do you think he was dreaming of a kid coming out of _that_ , the way it happened? Besides, in that house, with our dad, after everything we went through…” She sighs. “I’m not having kids, you know. Not ever.”

“I know,” Yevgeny says. “But…” He bites his lip. “But I just feel like…their lives would be better if they didn’t have me. Ian ran away because Dad married Mama and that’s when his mom made him have sex with old guys for drugs. And Dad wouldn’t have had to marry Mama at all without me so he could’ve still been with Ian.” They already told him they love him and they’re glad they have him, but he can’t help but keep thinking this.

“Yevgeny,” Mandy says gently. “After Terry caught Mickey and Ian together, there was no way they could’ve still been together. Whether Svetlana got pregnant or not. And anyway, thinking about what might’ve happened doesn’t do anyone any good. What happened happened. It’s totally fucked and it was so fucking bad. Thinking about some of that stuff still hurts a lot. I’m so sad that happened to Mickey, and to your mom, and to Ian. It was a fucked up situation all around. But you? You made all our lives better. Right away.”

“Are you sure?” Yevgeny asks tearfully. Just because they love him now doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be better off without him.

“Well, maybe not _right_ away,” Mandy teases. “I didn’t like changing diapers, and you cried all night.” She pats his hand. “You ever doubted any of them love you?”

“No,” he admits.

“You ever think they didn’t want you around?”

“No.”

She nods. “Okay.” She goes back to eating. “We got a good thing out of the bad thing. That’s what we gotta remember.”

“We went to parents’ day at my new school the other night,” Yevgeny says. He looks down into his bowl. “And then yesterday at school everyone was saying—they were all saying we’re white trash.”

Mandy snorts. “Now there’s a familiar feeling.”

“Not to me,” Yevgeny says quietly.

Mandy sighs. “Yeah. I know. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t tell Dad or Ian or Mama about that,” he says. “I was going to, but then…” He shrugs. “Feels kinda dumb to worry about kids at school now.”

“It’s not dumb,” Mandy says. “It’s your life. And that shit hurts. Knowing everyone thinks you’re not worth dog shit just because you don’t have money or ‘cause your family’s fucked up.”

Yevgeny runs his finger over a chip in the tabletop. “I didn’t think my family was fucked up,” he says softly. “I knew—I mean, Mama and Dad and Ian are kind of fucked up. I knew that. I knew they had really bad stuff happen. But I thought it was okay now. I thought _our family_ wasn’t fucked up.”

“You’re not wrong,” Mandy says. “I mean, yeah, the stuff that happened to them—none of that goes away. Ever. But you guys, all four of you, together, you’re a good family. You love each other. You take care of each other.”

“But…we’ll always be fucked up,” Yevgeny says dejectedly. “There’s no way we can’t be. Just because…because for us to be a family the fucked up stuff had to happen.”

Mandy shrugs. “Yeah, maybe. But lots of families are fucked up and don’t try to make it any better. You got really good parents, Yev, and you should be really glad.”

Yevgeny blinks hard, tears stinging his eyes. “Sorry,” he says. “You had bad parents. Dad’s told me that a million times.”

“Yeah, we had shitty parents,” Mandy says evenly. “I’m not saying you can never complain about yours, though. I know your parents, and they can be really fucking annoying.” She gives him a little smile. “I’m just saying, no matter what happens, or what happened before, they’re always gonna do everything they can for you. They’d do anything for you. Do you know that? Really?”

“Yeah,” Yevgeny admits. “I know.”

“Okay,” Mandy says. “Just think about that, okay?”

“Okay,” Yevgeny says. “Are they coming to get me?”

“Do you want them to?” Mandy asks.

Yevgeny pushes up his glasses. “Do I get a choice?”

Mandy shrugs. “Yeah, I say you do. My fucking house. I don’t have to let them in, you know.”

Yevgeny laughs a little. The idea of her making them wait outside on the front porch is kind of funny, if he chooses not to think of it as really sad. Picturing his parents waiting on the doorstep like Sasha used to kind of makes his chest hurt. “I don’t know what I want,” he says.

“That’s okay, too,” Mandy says. She reaches over and gives him a gentle little pinch on the arm. Ian calls them her _love pinches_. She does it when a lot of people would give a hug, but she can’t always do hugs, just like Mickey. “You can stay here with me as long as you want.” She goes back to eating like it’s no big deal, like he didn’t just show up unannounced after finding out the deepest, darkest secrets his parents have been hiding from him.

“Thanks, Aunt Mandy,” he says. He dropped the _aunt_ part years ago, when he was eschewing all things he declared for babies, but it feels like a good time to say it right now. She gives him another little pinch and a smile, and then they eat in silence.

 

Mandy doesn’t have an extra room or anything, so she gives him a pillow and two blankets and sets him up on the couch. “Your parents are coming,” she says. “But they won’t get here until late.”

“Oh,” Yevgeny says. He’s not surprised.

“Say the word and I kick all three of ‘em to the curb,” Mandy promises.

Yevgeny laughs. “No, it’s okay,” he decides. “I shouldn’t have just left like that. I bet—they were probably really worried. They always worry about me getting kidnapped and stuff.”

“Yeah,” Mandy says quietly. “They were scared.”

Yevgeny nods, guilt gnawing at his stomach. He knows how uptight his parents are about that. He should’ve at least texted them before he put his phone on airplane mode. He still hasn’t taken it off. He’s not ready to see all those frantic messages.

He wakes up sometime in the middle of the night. The room is dark, but he can hear the sounds of other people breathing. He rolls over to see all three of his parents asleep on the floor. Ian’s in the middle, holding onto Mickey, back-to-back with Svetlana on the other side. Something tickles Yevgeny’s arm and he looks down to see his little stuffed Sasha. One of them must have seen it on his bed, realized he’d slept with it last night, and brought it to him just in case. Yevgeny watches them all for a minute. He’s still not sure what to think or feel about everything Ian and Mickey told him. He’s not sure what it means for him to know that’s where he came from.

But he does know that’s his family. His mama, who used to cuddle him into bed with her when he had nightmares, kiss his scraped knees and tear-streaked face, who had no options but went out and found a job anyway so she could make sure he was taken care of, who makes French toast every Sunday morning even though she doesn’t even like it just because it’s Yevgeny’s favorite breakfast. Ian, who taught him to tie his shoes and a tie and is the most patient by far, who he goes to when he’s not sure how his parents will react about something, who goes to work for ten hours at a time, dealing with a lot of scary shit, and always has time to deal with Yevgeny when he gets home, who deals with all his own trauma and his bipolar disorder and makes sure Yevgeny knows it’s okay to take days off, who’s always open and honest with him about everything and wants to make sure he takes advantage of all the opportunities he gets. And his dad, who lived through so much before he could even understand it all, who’s covered in scars and can’t always hide how much pain he’s in, who never even wanted a kid, who didn’t get to choose to have him, but who protects him and loves him and spends so much time doubting and second-guessing himself but trying so hard to do the right thing.

Yevgeny gets off the couch. He eases himself down by Svetlana, Fake Sasha in hand. She opens her eyes and looks at him. Neither of them say anything. Yevgeny cuddles in close and breathes in that same familiar smell.

“Mama, I don’t hate you. I love you,” he whispers in Russian. Big stuff is easier for her in her native language. Especially if she’s been stressed and worried all day, which is his fault.

She lets out a shuddery breath. “Thank you, Zhenya. I love you.”

He’s not sure if he needs to say anything else. But she puts closes her eyes again before he can, so he takes the hint. She puts her arm around him and holds him tight, and they go back to sleep.

 

Sleeping on the ground all night did not do Mickey any favors. He wakes up with a grumpy scowl on his face. Yevgeny knows he has a lot of aches and pains from old injuries and feels guilty again. If Yevgeny hadn’t run away, Mickey wouldn’t have slept on the floor. At the very least, Yevgeny could’ve woken Mickey up when he moved to the floor so Mickey could have the couch.

But Mickey doesn’t say anything. He rubs his eyes and pulls his knees up to his chest. Then he just looks at Yevgeny. Ian’s still asleep, and Yevgeny knows Mickey won’t say anything right now. He never interrupts Ian’s sleep. Svetlana’s gone, but there are noises in the kitchen that give a clue to where she is. Yevgeny doesn’t really want to go in there. As soon as he does, Mickey will follow him and the talking has to start.

Mickey must get tired of waiting for Yevgeny to make the first move, because finally he sighs and heaves himself up off the floor. If Ian wasn’t still asleep, Yevgeny’s pretty sure there would be a lot of theatrical groaning happening right now. Not all of it would be theatrical, because Mickey’s body really did used to take a lot of beatings. Yevgeny watches him walk away, the slight limp, the grimace on his face as he stretches his legs, hears the cacophony of pops and crackles his body gives out every morning, and his stomach hurts again. After the horror show that was his childhood and going to prison, Mickey’s dedicated the last eight years to being a good father to Yevgeny, and Yevgeny repaid him by throwing a tantrum and running away, scaring Mickey half to death. Yevgeny’s been trying so hard to grow up, but that was definitely a baby move. He decides to nut up, as Mickey himself would say, and follows his father into the kitchen.

Mickey turns around and raises his eyebrows. “Oh, I had to make the first move, huh?”

Yevgeny shrugs, feeling absurdly awkward and shy. He can’t remember ever feeling shy around his own family. Maybe that first week Mickey got out of prison, but that’s a hazy memory at best.

“Sit and eat,” Svetlana instructs. “We talk after, when Ian is awake.”

“He’ll be up soon,” Mickey says. “He never sleeps in very late.”

Yevgeny sits at the table and Svetlana brings him some eggs. “Where’s Mandy?” He asks.

“She had to go to work,” Mickey tells him. “She took off early yesterday when we realized you were coming here.”

The eggs taste like dust in Yevgeny’s mouth. He swallows hard. “Sorry.”

Mickey bites his thumbnail. “We’re not talking about it until Ian wakes up. Eat your breakfast.”

It didn’t really occur to Yevgeny that Mickey would be _mad_ at him. It should’ve; he did a shitty thing, and anger’s always been the easiest emotion for Mickey to access. But somehow Yevgeny was kind of expecting a pass on punishment because of the emotional upheaval. Judging by Mickey’s tone, that’s not happening.

“Ian’s awake,” Ian says, coming into the kitchen. He leans down and kisses the top of Mickey’s head.

Mickey tips his head back for an upside-down kiss. “You were supposed to sleep longer than that.”

“Believe it or not, you guys are not that quiet,” Ian teases.

“Sorry,” Yevgeny mumbles again. Ian’s face tightens a little, but he comes around the table and kisses the top of Yevgeny’s head, too. He puts his arms around Yevgeny from behind and holds onto him for a second.

“You really scared us,” he says quietly. He gives Yevgeny another squeeze and lets go. “Glad you’re okay.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you guys,” Yevgeny says. “I just…” He shrugs, tears pricking his eyes. “I was so confused.”

“Yeah,” Ian says, nudging Svetlana away from the stove so she’ll sit down and eat. “We get that. Doesn’t mean you can just run away, Yev.”

“I know,” Yevgeny says. “I won’t do it again.”

“You need a day to fuck off, you can just say it,” Mickey says. “I said you could stay home yesterday.”

“I know,” Yevgeny sighs. “I didn’t think I wanted to until I was on the L.”

“One text,” Mickey says, voice tight. “All you had to do was send one text.”

“If I sent you a text, you would’ve sent me a bunch back, and called, and—”

“At least we would’ve known you were _alive_.” Mickey’s voice breaks, and Yevgeny’s stomach clenches again. “Fuck, kid. You leave for school like always, then two hours later your school calls and says you didn’t show up. You know what that does to us? And then calls are going straight to voicemail, texts aren’t going through…” Mickey pushes a shaking hand through his hair. Ian sits next to him and holds his hand.

“I said I was sorry,” Yevgeny points out, crying now. “I didn’t think about it.”

“You thought about it enough to turn off your phone, huh?” Mickey says.

“Just airplane mode,” Yevgeny argues weakly. “You could still track the GPS.”

“Yeah, and luckily Liam knew how to do that,” Mickey snaps. “You think I got any fucking idea how to track your phone GPS? I know that one app thing on _my_ phone but that didn’t work. You don’t think I got enough fucking nightmares without picturing you dead in a ditch somewhere?”

“I’m sorry,” Yevgeny chokes out. He doesn’t know what else he can say. Ian squeezes Mickey’s hand and Mickey breathes out harshly.

“Okay,” Ian cuts in. “That happened. It was bad and it’s not going to happen again. Agreed?” Yevgeny nods. “I think all of us understand the thinking behind running away from something sometimes,” Ian adds pointedly.

Mickey scoffs. “Yeah, well, we’re adults. So if we want to run away, we get to.”

“Mickey,” Ian says under his breath. He raises his eyebrows at Mickey.

Mickey looks mulish for another second, but then clicks his tongue and looks away. “Yeah, okay. I’m pissed because I was fucking terrified, kid. You know I don’t like being scared. I go straight to pissed when I’m feeling bad. And I’ve been feeling real fucking guilty about how it all went down the other day. I’m sorry I freaked out on you like that. I shouldn’t have let you see me that way. I should’ve held it together better than that. It’s been a long time. I shouldn’t still be—” He cuts himself off and takes a deep breath. “No,” he says, shaking his head. “No, actually, I don’t gotta be sorry for not being okay, even if it’s been a long time.”

“That’s right,” Ian murmurs, bringing Mickey’s hand up to his lips.

“But I’m not saying sorry for giving you shit, ‘cause what you did was wrong, but…” Mickey shrugs. “Yeah, maybe running away’s in your blood or something. Got that from me, I guess.”

“And me,” Svetlana says.

“And me,” Ian says. “I mean, not in your blood, but you know what I mean.”

“I don’t know…” Yevgeny takes a deep breath. “I don’t know what to think or anything. About…all that.”

“It’s a lot to process,” Ian commiserates. “It might take you some time to figure it out.”

“I feel bad,” Yevgeny says, because he knows that, at least.

“Bad what?” Svetlana asks.

Yevgeny looks at his hands while he tries to think of what to say. “Bad like…guilty. And sad.”

“Hey, no, you don’t gotta feel guilty,” Mickey says right away.

“But you feel what you feel,” Ian adds, kind of warningly. “And sad definitely makes sense.”

“You said I didn’t ruin your lives but I still feel like I did.”

Svetlana reaches over and puts her hand on his cheek. “You are best part of my life,” she promises. “You are first good thing I ever have.”

That doesn’t necessarily make him feel much better, given the circumstances, but he can feel his chin wobbling as he tries not to burst into tears again.

“Are you mad at us?” Ian asks softly. “Think differently about us?”

Yevgeny looks up quickly. “What? Why would I?”

Mickey’s chewing his lips hard. He shrugs. “We didn’t tell you.”

“Well…” Yevgeny shrugs, too. “I was a kid. I was too little to get it. You told me when I asked. And that’s—I get why you didn’t you want to talk about it. That’s…” He doesn’t have words for what it is. “Really fucking shitty.”

Mickey huffs. “Yeah.”

“Dad?” Yevgeny says. “It’s okay that you didn’t hold it together in front of me. I think I’d be more confused if you were just okay about it. Because I feel really confused but I know it’s bad and you—if you weren’t acting like it’s bad I would feel like I’m wrong for being confused.”

“You’re not wrong, Yev,” Ian promises.

“I’m not mad at you guys and I don’t—I don’t think it’s your…fault, or anything.” His stomach hurts just thinking that any of his parents blaming themselves. It’s absolutely the kind of thing they had no control over, in the very worst way. They were the same age as some of his _friends_ when this happened. “I just feel bad about me. About myself.” He cringes. “Sorry. I mean the guilty stuff. I don’t mean—I feel bad about what happened to you guys.”

“We know,” Svetlana says. “We know what you mean.”

“I don’t know how to make you feel better, kid,” Mickey admits. He sounds defeated. “I guess all we can do is keep telling you we’re glad we got you.”

“Mandy said you just decided to ignore the bad parts and focus on the good stuff,” Yevgeny says. “And she said I’m the good stuff.”

“The best,” Ian says. “And you know, we _have_ been to therapy. So the ignoring part’s over, too.”

“Speak for yourself,” Mickey mutters. “I’ll ignore what I want to ignore.”

Ian rolls his eyes, but he has that look on his face like he thinks Mickey’s being kind of cute. The things Ian thinks are cute about Mickey are not things most people think are cute about anyone. The older Yevgeny gets, the more he knows that to be true.

“I don’t think this is something we can talk out and fix right away,” Ian points out apologetically. “Think this is one of those things we have to suffer through for a while.”

Mickey groans. “The worst fucking kind.” He’s acting extra prickly and jokey, which means he feels anxious. It didn’t take long for Yevgeny to recognize that.

Yevgeny sighs. “Okay,” he says.

“We called Dr. Nelson,” Svetlana says, referencing the child psychologist they sent him to a few times when he was younger. “You will go.”

“I don’t get a choice?” Yevgeny asks. He’s not particularly opposed, necessarily, but yet again, it’s someone deciding for him.

“We’re all going,” Ian explains. “Together. Family therapy. And then you should go on your own, too, but we’re not gonna force you.”

Yevgeny thinks about that. “I don’t think it’s a bad plan,” he decides.

Ian huffs. “You can’t just say it’s a good plan?”

“Was it your plan?” Yevgeny guesses, starting to feel like he’s finally finding some solid ground again. Laughing and teasing each other—that’s normal.

“Going to therapy and talking about our feelings?” Mickey says. “Course it was his plan.”

Ian shoots him a little look, because Mickey goes around trying to get everyone into therapy as much as he does, but he doesn’t say anything. He turns back to Yevgeny. “Anything we can do to make you feel better right now?”

Yevgeny shrugs, pushing eggs around on his plate. “I don’t know.” In all honesty, some of his worries about ruining their lives are already ebbing away. Like Mandy said, he’s never doubted that they all love him, and none of them have ever made him feel like they don’t want him around. It’s harder to forget that when he’s looking at them and they’re all working so hard to make him feel better.

“You need a hug, kid?” Mickey asks.

Yevgeny’s always been a hugger, and he used to take it as his job to make sure Mickey was getting enough hugs, since he had a hard time accepting them from people. That’s not as much of a problem anymore as it used to be, and maybe Yevgeny’s gotten lax in his duties. Right now, asking Yevgeny if he needs a hug, Mickey looks awkward. Yevgeny realizes, with a little jolt in his chest, Mickey’s afraid he’s going to say no. After all these years, after therapy and a close family and love, Mickey’s still worried about rejection.

Yevgeny can’t fully understand it. He knows it stems from everything Mickey went through as a kid with his bad family, and prison, too, probably, but Yevgeny still doesn’t _get_ it. He doesn’t know how Mickey, who remembers exactly the way Yevgeny likes the air vents in the car to be situated for the AC in the summer and adjusts them accordingly, doesn’t remember that Yevgeny thinks he’s the best dad in the world. Maybe it’s Yevgeny’s fault. Maybe now that he’s a teenager he hasn’t been spending enough time with his parents to remind them all of that. He’s not sure. But he knows he can fix it. That’s what this whole thing has taught him, now more than ever—they can’t change the bad stuff they all went through, but they can work on making sure they have good stuff from now on.

“Yeah, Dad,” Yevgeny says, chest aching, eyes burning with tears. “Can I have a hug?”

Mickey wraps Yevgeny in his arms and squeezes him tight, like he’s done a million times in Yevgeny’s life. Yevgeny does his best to squeeze back just as hard. He wants Mickey to know that no matter how old Yevgeny gets, no matter what big, shocking revelations they give him, this part isn’t going to change.

“I love you, Dad,” Yevgeny whispers. Mickey takes a sharp breath. He told Yevgeny that sometimes, when he’s not feeling his best, it still kind of catches him off-guard when people tell him that. This must be one of those times, and that makes Yevgeny cry some more. He hates thinking about his dad not knowing anyone loves him. He hates thinking about when no one _did_ love him. He used to have nightmares about it, when he first started getting old enough to understand what all those scars on his dad’s body meant. He had nightmares about a big, faceless man beating up on Mickey, and no one could do anything to stop him. The older he gets, the worse it makes him feel, because he knows Mickey would never let that happen to him, but no one made sure it didn’t happen to Mickey.

“I love you, too,” Mickey whispers back. “So much, kid, you don’t even know.”

Yevgeny thinks that’s probably true. He doesn’t know how they all went from not wanting him, from not choosing him, to now, to doing everything for him and always taking care of him. But maybe he doesn’t need to know. Maybe therapy will help him understand a little better.

He hugs Ian next. “You didn’t ruin anything,” Ian tells him. “You made our lives better, okay?”

“Okay,” Yevgeny says. It’s not agreement, but he’ll take Ian’s word for now.

“I love you, Yev,” Ian says, kissing his forehead just like he used to do every night before Yevgeny went to sleep, like he still does now when Yevgeny’s sick.

“I love you, too, Ian,” Yevgeny says.

And then it’s Svetlana’s turn. She still looks apprehensive. He remembers what Mickey said, that she doesn’t have anything to feel guilty for but thinks she does. He shies away from the other thought that crowds into his head, about how it would feel to be told to walk into a room and have sex with anyone who’s there, whether he wanted to or not, and a guy who pulled out a gun and made him do it. About being sold by your own dad into that situation, into a whole life like that. That hurts to even think about.

“You are my baby,” Svetlana tells him. “Always have been and always will be. My own heart.”

It’s easiest to believe her. Maybe it’s because she’s always been so fiercely protective of him, or maybe it’s just some implicit sexism Debbie would lecture him about. But she’s his _mama_. He’s never known anything as strongly as he knows she loves him.

“Thanks, Mama,” he says. “I love you.”

They haven’t fixed anything, and they might not ever be able to, really. But it feels like a start.

 

“Look over here,” Ian says, holding up his phone.

“Can this please be the last one?” Yevgeny asks impatiently. He’s been holding this fake smile for so long his face hurts.

“For now,” Ian acquiesces. “We’re taking more when your date gets here.”

“One?” Yevgeny suggests.

Mickey snorts. “Your mom’s making a fucking flip book over there.” He raises his eyebrows at Svetlana. “You know you can just take a video, right?”

“I took video,” she says, unconcerned. “Now I take picture.”

“You guys,” Yevgeny groans. “This is really not that big of a deal.”

“Yev, it’s your first date!” Ian exclaims.

“First school dance,” Svetlana adds.

Mickey shrugs. “Sorry, kid. Trust me, I tried.”

“Did you actually?” Yevgeny asks suspiciously.

Ian cracks up laughing. He puts on a scowl and imitates Mickey. “Ian, you better get a bunch of pictures. First date’s a fucking big deal. My phone isn’t good for pictures so you gotta do it. Don’t forget to get some with his date.”

“Okay,” Mickey scoffs. “I don’t know who you’re doing.”

“Always you, babe,” Ian says with a cheesy grin.

“Shut the fuck up,” Mickey laughs.

“This is why no one wants to go on double dates with you,” Yevgeny says.

“They are disgusting,” Svetlana agrees, like she and Nika weren’t fully lying on top of each other last night. They weren’t even kissing or anything, just cuddling, but somehow that was almost worse.

There’s a knock on the door and Mickey opens it to Kev and V with both twins. Amy’s in a yellow dress and Gemma’s wearing dark blue.

“Hey, guys,” Yevgeny says. It’s not even really a date, in all honesty. Blake struck out with yet another girl he was in love with, and they were _heavily encouraged_ to attend the school dance, so Yevgeny pulled a favor with Amy and Gemma. They were excited to see how a rich private school does dances. No doubt it’ll be better than the half-crushed bags of chips and suspicious punch in the middle school gym they all got used to.

“Where’s the dude?” Amy asks. The twins did rock, paper, scissors for dates. Yevgeny’s not offended. He’s not sure he could feel in love with either of them, considering they all grew up together. He even heard some story about Svetlana breastfeeding one or both of them, and that severely weirds him out.

“He’s on his way,” Yevgeny says. He feels a little anxious about that. Blake’s dad got them a limo, and it’s going to look wildly out of place in their neighborhood. Yevgeny can’t help but feel a little apprehensive about Blake and his dad seeing where they live.

“You’re letting a rich kid come out here?” Kev asks. “Ballsy.”

“Bet his parents won’t leave the car the whole time,” V says.

“His dad’s bringing a limo,” Yevgeny says.

“No shit?” Gemma says. “Nice. Do you think it’s one of those limos with champagne in it?”

“If it is, you better bring some home,” V instructs.

“How do you know we won’t drink it all first?” Amy asks.

“Oh, please. You throw a fit over getting the wrong ice cream flavor. You’ll take one sip and hate it.”

Kev snorts. “Champagne and wine take a more adult palate, girls.”

“Or you just gotta stop giving a shit and pour it directly down your throat,” Mickey says with a shrug.

“Well, I’m choosing to believe my daughters don’t yet know how to open their throats that way,” Kev says. “Just because you were deepthroating at their age doesn’t mean they should be.”

Mickey laughs and flips him off. “Hey, don’t talk about that shit in front of my kid.”

“Yeah, only we can talk about deep-throating in front of our kid,” Ian says.

“Stop!” Yevgeny interrupts. “You’re so gross.”

The next knock on the door is a lot more tentative. It has to be Blake. Mickey raises his eyebrows at Yevgeny. “You want to just run out?” He asks. He bites his lip after he asks. Yevgeny knows what he means. He’s saying Yevgeny and the twins can go out without letting Blake inside. Blake doesn’t have to see their house. He doesn’t have to talk to Yevgeny’s parents. Mickey’s giving him a pass on being embarrassed about his family.

Yevgeny takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “No, he should come in for more pictures,” he says. Any uncertainty he feels is worth the smiles he gets in return. Svetlana puts her arm around his shoulders and squeezes him, careful not to muss up his suit or his hair.

“My good boy,” she murmurs.

“Hi,” Blake says, not even hesitating in the doorway. “Um, this is my dad, Nathan.”

Nathan does a little double-take at the number of people inside. “Hello,” he says, a little unsure.

“Hi, Mr. Oberhue,” Yevgeny says. He’s met Blake’s dad twice, both just in passing when he came to pick Blake up from school. “This is my mom, Svetlana, and my dad, Mickey, and my stepdad Ian. And this is Amy and Gemma, and their mom V and dad Kev.”

“Great to meet you all,” Nathan says, giving everyone handshakes. Mickey kind of hangs back for a second, but then he shakes his head and extends his hand, too. Nathan’s a big guy, almost as tall as Kev, and he’s got an easy smile. Yevgeny relaxes. “My wife couldn’t come over ‘cause she’s got court in the morning,” Nathan says. “But if I don’t come back with at least forty pictures I think I’m sleeping in the pool house tonight.”

“Pool house,” V echoes under her breath. Svetlana rolls her eyes in agreement and the two of them kind of giggle together. It’s extremely weird.

The kids all submit to pictures, and then they finally get to leave. “Be good,” Ian tells Yevgeny. “Just because you think it’s not a real date doesn’t mean you don’t treat Gemma good, okay? Open doors and pull out her chair or whatever.”

“He is gentleman,” Svetlana says, kissing Yevgeny’s cheek. “Be good boy.”

“I will,” Yevgeny promises. “Good _bye_.”

“Ay,” Mickey says. He comes in closer and murmurs, “You remember how to dance?”

“Yes, Dad,” Yevgeny says, kind of embarrassed. The last two nights, Ian and Svetlana have been teaching him. Mickey did not participate, except to provide snacks and what he considered witty commentary.

Mickey squeezes the back of Yevgeny’s neck gently. His eyes are all shiny. Yevgeny’s only known Mickey as an easy crier, but Mandy and Ian have assured him it’s extremely hilarious based on how Mickey used to act when they were younger. “Have fun, alright? I love you.”

“Love you, too, Dad,” Yevgeny says. “I will.”

He looks back as he walks out. His parents are standing there talking with Kev and V, laughing and happy. Yevgeny smiles looking at them. They’ve been to family therapy twice so far, and it’s been kind of painful but maybe worth it. It’ll definitely be worth it to see more of that, to smile with them again and not think of what they’d be doing if he’d never been born.

“Man, you’re really close with your parents,” Blake says.

Yevgeny follows him down the front steps. He knows they’ll be waiting up for him when he gets home, maybe dozing on the couch because they’re boring. They’ll want to hear how it went, if he danced right, if anyone spiked the punch, if he changed his mind and _likes_ likes Gemma after all or if there was anyone else there who caught his eye. Svetlana will probably take more pictures of him post-dance, and within a week there’ll be a new picture of him on the wall.

“Yeah,” Yevgeny says with a big smile. He feels settled and warm. Loved. Happy. “I really am.”

He doesn’t look back again as they leave. He knows they’ll be here for him when he gets home.

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](http://biblionerd07.tumblr.com)


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